Blind Spots
by Spoiled Sweet
Summary: Sakura's life is a chaotic mess and she can't seem to find her footing. Neji is caught between his duties to his clan and job and a growing interest in a particular medic. It'll start with Sakura breaking his hands and end in Hinata starting a riot.
1. Medics and Pride

**Blind Spot**

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Getting a late-night call to head-up a Rapid Deployment Squad on their way to the southern border of Fire was not Sakura's idea of fun and it was by no means _relaxing_, but nowadays she was willing to do just about anything to get a break. There was nothing that RDS could throw at her that she didn't prefer over the turbulence provided by all of the most prominent men in her life.

"Good evening."

Sakura narrowed her eyes as she landed in a crouch over an ANBU who was prone on the ground. Across the clearing from her stood a man in a tattered tunic and sandals, the remnants of manacles still hanging from his wrists, and his shaggy, graying hair greasy and clinging to his throat and forehead with the torrential downpour of rain coming down on them.

Poison, she concluded with one look at the operative's trembling limbs and greening skin. She clenched her teeth.

The man was one of many escaped criminals that the ANBU squad had been initially sent after and one of the few remaining that her squad had been debriefed about. A renowned chemist and expert in chemical warfare. Dangerous. A-classed. Her only comfort was the fact that he was not known as a particularly skillful fighter.

Quick. This had to be quick. It wouldn't do for her to end up poisoned as well.

"I'm only here for him," she said, indicating the operative at her feet as she pushed her hair back from her face. She was soaked through to the bone, her belted cloak clinging to her, already having given in and no longer performing its primary duty of keeping her dry. She was dead on her feet from the hike that brought her and her squad from Konoha to the borders of Wind in a matter of hours—timing that was unheard of.

"Ah, a medic," the criminal murmured, his eyes narrowing as he dragged them over her form. A smirk pulled at his lips. "A bit of friendly advice: do not waste your time trying to help this fellow. That poison is my masterpiece—I had a lot of time to perfect it in prison—and I imagine that your services will be required elsewhere for less dismal cases."

Sakura cocked an eyebrow at this and then lifted one shoulder, shrugging indifferently. "I'm not worried."

His smirk fell abruptly into a scowl. "Why is that?"

The tail of the medic's cloak snapped with the rapidity of her next movement, which had her standing behind him. "I've read your file. As someone who fought Sasori of the Red Sand—" the man's whole body went rigid at the mention of the deceased puppeteer—"I have to say: you'll never be on par with him."

Then, before he could do anything, she stepped forward and buckled his right knee with a kick to the back of the joint, sending him to the ground and lining him up for a forearm strike to the side of his head that sent him rocketing into the underbrush.

"Fucking embarrassing," the ANBU whispered when she returned to his side. "Can't believe he got me."

Sakura smiled a little in an attempt to reassure him. "I bet he caught you by surprise."

The operative laughed huskily. "That's even more embarrassing," he muttered. "Don't tell my captain that, all right?"

"My lips are sealed," she replied as she hefted his limp frame up to stand and then pulled him across her shoulders into a fireman's carry.

* * *

Wounded and medics alike were soaked through their clothes by the torrential downpour of rain that was threatening to wash away the impromptu triage station set up by the half of her team not occupied with locating the injured. It was markedly more comfortable with the heavy tarp over their heads to protect them from the downpour, but the ground they were standing on was still a soupy, bacteria-ridden nightmare of mud and grass. The wounded were laid out on bedrolls in an attempt to protect them while antibiotics and steroids were being applied heavily to cut the chances of infection caused by the less than sterile conditions.

"What do we have?"

Sakura was well and officially irritable. She was muddy up to her thighs and exhausted after fighting off three more convicts and hauling four more injured back to camp.

Udon looked no better. The young medic's shoulders were slumped and his glasses were continually sliding down the bridge of his nose. His hair, graying already at eighteen, was disheveled and muddy and he was beginning already to show signs of serious chakra depletion.

"There were four critical injuries," he said. "All others are minor. But… um…"

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "But um what?'

Udon glanced to his right and Sakura's eyes followed him, quickly cataloguing the row of patients. "The captain on the end," the boy began. "Thoracic trauma caused by a blunt weapon, but he will not allow any of the medics to tend to him before his men are treated."

Her eyes honed in on the culprit, the white of his cloak showing through the caked on layers of mud giving him away in an instant. His hood was down, revealing long, murky brown hair that was escaping over his shoulders. She knew him on sight, without even seeing his face, and huffed irritably. "I'll take care of it. See that everyone is supplied with their ration of soldier pills if they're needed."

He nodded and she trudged off toward the Captain, making notes on the condition of the others as she passed their beds.

"Captain."

The man's head turned slightly to acknowledge her, his eagle mask splashed liberally with mud and blood.

Sakura gingerly sat down on the edge of his bed. His breastplate had been smashed and what remained of the hardened shell simply served to be in the way. "I hear you've been giving my people a hard time," she began in her lightest tone as she reached for his mask with both hands.

His stopped her immediately, locking his hands around hers like iron braces. "The others?" he asked gruffly.

"Four of them cannot be treated here," she replied automatically. "They are stable but require attention beyond our capabilities at this time and are being transported as quickly as possible back to Konoha."

He did not seem to approve of this answer. "If they are that critically wounded, you should be with them, Haruno."

For Sakura, her irritability had always been compounded by a lack of sleep—making her great fun on prolonged stake-outs—and found herself desperately trying to bite back her ire. "The medics sent with them are some of the best and those that are waiting for them in Konoha are even better. Besides, I'm leading this team. I cannot abandon this encampment before my people and my patients are cleared out and on their way home."

"Then we are at an impasse."

Her eyes narrowed and her temper snapped. She hated stubborn patients. Sure, her teammates could be unbearable—Kakashi alone required an entire wing of hospital staff to simply keep him in bed—but they were never this bullheaded or impossible. "Fine, if you want to play it that way." She rolled her shoulders, turned her head from side to side to pop her neck, and then began to squeeze the hands that still held hers even harder, slowly increasing the pressure. "Hyuuga Neji, you have two options."

"Which are?" He sounded unfazed.

"Either I remove your mask and treat your injuries, or I break your hands and every other limb that gets in my way and _then_ I remove your mask and treat your injuries."

There was a thoughtful pause and then a derisive snort. "Go ahead."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. So, he thought that she was bluffing. "Last chance, Hyuuga."

"I am not afraid of you."

"Very well."

* * *

To say that Neji's night had been awful was something of an understatement.

This mission, which had been assigned at the last minute, had forced him to miss Hanabi's birthday party. Then, to rub salt into that wound, the intel given to his team by their informant had been bad. The kind of bad that had led them right into a trap.

One of his teammates had been taken down immediately and was almost certainly dead while another had been crushed beneath and earth-rending jutsu. The worst was the fact that it took the better part of a few seconds for him to realize that he was under the influence of a genjutsu. This was a few seconds too late to prevent the blow of the mace that smashed into his chest and through his plate armor.

Enraged, he pushed through the injury to fight and lead a successful retreat before finally succumbing to the intense pain that he radiated through his torso, down almost to his toes. His only comfort was the fact that he had been able to blow the informant's liver to pieces before the rat could run off, ensuring that his death would be neither quick nor painless nor escapable. With any luck he was gasping his last breaths in a ditch somewhere.

Now that pain was gone and replaced by another.

As promised, Haruno Sakura had broken both of his hands with just an ounce of her monstrous strength, leaving him such a state of disbelief that he couldn't fight her off when she proceeded to tear the rest of his armor away and cut open the uniform underneath to reach his wounds.

She threatened to break his legs next if he tried getting out of bed and then departed with a smile and a promise to return with a more thorough report on the welfare of his men.

It had been a long time since Neji had talked to the girl. He ran into her only on the occasions when their teams crossed paths or when she visited his cousin at the compound. Their conversations were never involved, never more than a customary greeting and assurance of one another's good health before moving on. He knew more _of_ her really. Lee, of course, was still in love with her after all of these years, she and Tenten were good friends, and Gai, whenever the pinkette came up in conversation, spoke very fondly of the girl who had served alongside him during the war.

Responsible for his broken hands or not, Neji found himself rather beholden to Gai's opinion and had always been inclined to respect her. Maybe to a degree this was even _helped_ by the broken hands. She had mentioned leading this particular RDS, a position not given out to just anyone. While he had never been involved with them as they were primarily medical units, he knew that the leader of any RDS had to be capable of organizing and mobilizing a fairly large team in a very short amount of time. Even most large ANBU teams were further divided into squads, which were all headed up by their own leader responsible for reporting to the captain. As far as he knew, RDS captains shouldered that responsibility all by themselves and by the look of things she was overseeing at least ten medics by herself.

He snapped from his reverie when Sakura once again approached.

She was not exactly formidable, he decided. She stood at a head shorter than him and looked very much like a drowned rat. Her hair was a ratty mess on top of her head, her skin was sallow and her eyes were dark with exhaustion, and her clothes were sagging wetly on her tiny frame, making them appear far too large for her. Even her white flak vest seemed to be just weighing her down.

"Hyuuga-san, I have seen to all of your men. Those who have not already been shipped out are now capable of leaving this encampment under their own power. Three of them have volunteered to try to catch up with and escort the injured who have been dispatched for Konoha with my men. Now, if you will allow me to see to your remaining injuries, I will."

Neji narrowed his eyes. "Very well."

She nodded and perched herself again on the edge of his bed before taking his hands tentatively in hers and summoning her chakra to repair the bones. For a very brief second, she met his eyes and then looked away.

He ground his teeth. A part of him was tempted to apologize—knew that Gai and Tenten would demand it of him. She was only there to assist, was responsible for the timely aid provided to his team, and for rescuing his critically wounded subordinates and keeping his spotless, casualty-free record as a captain just that. It was as much her job to see to his wounds as it was his to make sure his men were tended to.

And apparently she was just as determined as he was to get her job done

"Haruno."

She raised her eyes to his and lifted an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Neji clenched his jaw and exhaled. "Thank you."

That would work too, he told himself. It was at least _something_.

Sakura shrugged. "I'm just doing my job. As soon as you're on your feet again we can all get out of here."

* * *

Naruto leaned closer to the report and squinted at it. Try as he might, he was never up early enough to be there when Sakura turned in her reports in the early hours. That girl was always busy, always running here and there. He imagined that she'd need a vacation eventually, but feared the village would collapse without her.

He blinked and lifted the page up to the light. She had written this part abnormally small, which wasn't like her. Her reports were always neat and well-organized. They were boring as _fuck_, yes, but better than most others in terms of legibility, which made them quicker to get through (and he didn't get through many of them to Shizune's annoyance).

Naruto stood up from his desk and made his way over to the window. He was barefoot with his coat and hat draped over the back of his seat, something that never ceased to irritate Shizune either.

He slapped the page to the window and squinted again, tipping his head to the side. It was just plain intriguing now. Sakura never did this kind of thing, so what did she think she needed to hide? It couldn't be all that bad. It was _Sakura_. She never did anything reprehensible and it wasn't like he was going to punish her. Not like he could. He had happily pawned responsibility for the medics off on Tsunade when he had named her hospital administrator—to her snarling spite.

The man glanced back at the door when he heard a commotion in the hallway and then turned back to the page. _Neji_. Well, at least he got one name out of the mess. But wait, he frowned and checked the date. A few days ago? Neji had definitely been on an ANBU mission then. He had called him in personally. _Shit_. How had he missed that? Sakura's team had been sent out after _them_? Wonderful. He was surprised that the ANBU higher-ups weren't already all over his ass. They hated it when unsanctioned individuals got a glimpse of their operatives without their masks.

He rubbed at his forehead. Seriously, no wonder Tsunade-baachan had always been so bitchy. He needed more sleep, less paperwork—

"Naruto-sama."

Naruto snapped out of his daze and turned to the doors, a smile curling over his lips. "Oi, I was just thinking about you." He gestured at Neji, who trailing behind his uncle, who looked— _ooh_, a little mad. He cringed and looked back to the report page. "Uh, what can I do for you two?"

"I was curious, Hokage-sama," Hiashi began, his arms folded into the sleeves of his robes. "Is it in a medic's job description to _harm_ as well as help her patients?"

Well, that was a tough one. That sure seemed to be a part of the methodology of the two medics he was closest to, but that probably wasn't the answer Hiashi wanted to hear. "I, uh, suppose you'd have to ask a medic that," he said, frantically trying to make out the next words in the cluster of scribbles on the page because he had a sneaking feeling that it had everything to do with the issue at hand.

"Very droll, Hokage-sama."

Well, he hadn't been trying to be funny but at least Hiashi saw it that way. Or not, judging by the look on his face. Naruto chuckled nervously and edged back to his desk. "Haha, yeah," he said, rubbing at his head and dropping into his chair. "Um, I'm guessing we're talking about Sakura-chan here?"

Hiashi sighed and looked heavenward. "I understand that she is a good friend of yours, Hokage-sama, but it would do you well not to refer to her, or anyone else, so affectionately when in meetings. It is your job to at least _look_ impartial." He ended this with a roll of his shoulder. "If you do not mind the unsolicited advice."

Naruto shrugged too. It wasn't anything that Shikamaru's and Ino's dads didn't tell him a hundred times a day when given the chance (it was especially funny coming from Inoichi whose daughter was working with him in ANBU and who he still called by a pet name Naruto had sworn a blood oath to Ino to never repeat). He tried to hide his smile as he continued trying to decipher the report. It was funny, kind of. _Everyone_ was his mentor now. Chouji's dad had corrected his table manners when he ate with the Akimichis the week before. Shino's clan was uncommonly friendly in an attempt to make him comfortable when he had addressed them, which made the whole thing even weirder and ten times funnier. Kiba's mom was quick to adjust his collar and swat him upside the head for looking so bedraggled all the time (he could only imagine how frequently she must do this to _Kiba_).

"Right, thanks," he said. "So, uh… we're talking about Sakura-san?"

Hiashi nodded both in approval and agreement. "She—"

Naruto burst into laughter as the last line of the report became clear. "She broke your hands?"

It was quite possible that Neji and Hiashi both face-palmed at this.

"It isn't funny, Hokage-sama!" Hiashi snapped. "Your medics—"

Naruto lifted a finger to cut the man off as he wiped at his eyes with the other hand. "To be fair, they're not _my_ medics. If you have a problem with a policy upheld by our village's medical staff or with the behavior of a particular individual, you have to address the hospital administrator."

Hiashi's eyes narrowed. "She broke my nephew's hands while he was under her care. His hands are vital to his work and he is one of your most prized ninja. I would think you'd have something to say about this."

"Well, I do, but you're not going to like it," Naruto confessed.

The man looked positively exasperated.

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head as he got to his feet. "I'll, uh, have Tsunade-sama and Sakura-san called in here. In the mean time, would either of you like some tea?"

* * *

To her credit, Tsunade didn't laugh when she read the report. She smirked, but that was all.

Sakura glanced at Naruto. She was standing beside his desk and doing what she could to avoid eye contact with Hiashi and Neji both. Her hair was up and she had chosen a sundress for the rather warm spring day, a choice she regretted now that she was in this meeting. It didn't feel like enough under the scrutiny of two members of the very conservative Hyuuga clan. Although, she suspected that only a suit of lead could fix this particular problem.

Her ears were burning and not out of embarrassment. Instead, she was mad, specifically at Neji. She hadn't pegged him for the type to cry to his uncle because of a little necessary roughness.

"Sakura."

She looked to her mentor. "Yes, shishou?"

The blond lifted an eyebrow at her. "As I understand it, you broke Neji's hands when he refused treatment."

"That is correct."

"It was a chest wound?"

"Blunt force trauma to the thoracic cavity."

Tsunade nodded slowly. "Did he present symptoms of severe injury?"

Sakura shrugged. "His breathing was labored and given the force of the blow, I was concerned about a pulmonary edema and the possibility of an arrhythmia or internal bleeding."

"You understand that ninja _can_ refuse medical treatment."

"I understand that they can, but outside of cases where death is imminent and treatment would simply prolong suffering, I never acknowledge such refusals." She shrugged and flipped some stray locks over her shoulder, sparing a glance in Naruto's direction. "In all honesty, Hokage-sama, your men can be complete idiots when it comes to medical treatment. I'm not sure if it's stubborn machismo or a rash of latent and badly timed cases of iatrophobia, but more often than not treatment is brushed aside even when the wound is actually critical. For the most part, you men are not qualified to assess their injuries and my job is to make the diagnosis and treat it, not abide by stupidity."

Naruto, who had his chin resting in an upturned palm, carefully tipped his head down to hide his smile in his hand and stifle the laughter that shook his shoulders.

"At what point was breaking his hands necessary?" Hiashi asked, lightly.

Sakura finally looked to him. "At the point where he refused to allow me to remove his mask and better assess his breathing," she replied. "I did not leave his hands untreated, I never intended to. I saw to them as soon as I was able."

Hiashi raised an eyebrow. "We are here because this morning, during a sparring session, he was out of form. He would not tell me what was wrong at first, but it did not take long before I realized that he was in a great deal of pain. Whatever you did to fix it, it was not enough."

"I am fine," Neji finally said, his eyes focused on a point to the right of everyone else.

Haven't heard that one before, Sakura thought with a frown.

"My main concern is that this is _allowed_," Hiashi went on, looking at Tsunade now. "I do not approve of the fact that you allow your medics to physically bully wounded men. When they are ordered by a superior to stand down, they should show a modicum of discipline and do as they are told."

Tsunade scowled and when she wound up for a retort, Sakura slipped out from behind the desk, grabbed Neji by the elbow as she passed, and without a word to anyone, dragged him out into the hallway. If anyone noticed, it went uncommented upon.

After pulling the door shut behind her, Sakura rounded on the Hyuuga, who crossed both of his arms and raised an eyebrow at her in return, his stare impassive and bored.

"You told me that you were fine," she said.

"I _am_ fine."

"Your uncle doesn't think so."

"My uncle exaggerates."

Sakura snorted in an unladylike fashion in retort. "_Right_. That's a word I'd apply to Hyuuga Hiashi." She held her hands out to him and wiggled her fingers beseechingly. "Gimme."

Neji stared at her upturned palms. "There is no need."

"You'll recall that the last time you put up a fight, it didn't end well for you."

"You will reinforce my uncle's point."

Sakura stomped a foot irritably. "You're reinforcing _my_ point. I'm only trying to help and you're being _impossible_. Gimme."

He resisted for just a second longer, obviously calculating the probability that she would choose to end this in another physical confrontation. Then, apparently concluding that yes, yes she would, he grudgingly unfolded his arms and held his hands out for her to take.

"I must have missed something," Sakura said, mostly to herself. "I can't believe I missed something and I can't believe you didn't tell me that you were still in pain."

"I did not notice at the time."

She eyed him skeptically for this, but said nothing as she sent a surge of chakra into his hands.

Neji was quiet for some time following before he finally said, "Your chakra was severely depleted that night."

Sakura looked at him again and furrowed her brow. "Is that why you didn't say anything?"

"It factored into my decision, yes."

"Yeah, well my wounded are my top priority and I can monitor my own chakra levels, so just butt-out next time." She frowned suddenly and swore quietly under her breath. "Damn it. I missed some muscle and nerve damage in both. Ugh, hold still. This will only take a minute."

Stupid, she chastised herself. Stupid and sloppy. Why did she believe him when he told her that he was fine? She shook her head and tuned out the raised voices coming from inside the office. It was her fault. She had been exhausted at the time and so desperate to go home that she had just gone along with him. Idiot.

She finished after pushing one last surge of chakra through his hands to check every bone and tendon. "There," she said, considerably deflated. Idiot, idiot, idiot. "How's it feel?"

Neji pulled his hands away from hers and began to flex his fingers and rotate his wrists around. "Fine."

Sakura didn't even bother to stop herself from rolling her eyes, but refrained from saying anything to him about being a broken record. She looked instead to the office door. "I'm not going back in there," she said, narrowing her eyes as the voices raised another notch. True to form, Tsunade seemed to be doing most of the yelling. She made a mental note to check the woman's blood pressure later. "Tell your uncle that I'm very sorry his nephew is so stubborn."

Neji's lips twitched and Sakura privately suspected that that was as close to making a face as the man got. "Thank you."

This was usually the part where Sakura would remind her patient to find her if the problem persisted, but she knew she'd be wasting her breath. Instead, she spared him an uneasy smile and waved before turning and making her way down the hallway. She had yet to see Kakashi and she had promised her team that she'd meet them for lunch, an idea that was tiring all by itself.

* * *

1. A new story? ZOMG! (For anyone new to this rodeo: My notes are always insanely long and they always come at the bottom of the chapter for this reason. Sometimes they're funny, often times they're random, frequently they will make you want to strangle me.)

2. So I blame my friend SunMoonNeko almost entirely for once upon a time putting a Neji/Sakura bug in my brain. I guess I decided that Kaka/Saku is not crack enough for me and I have to do something more challenging. So here it is. I'm really shaky on character portrayals and how exactly to set this up. The first chapter, as you can see, jumps between a few perspectives. How often this happens will vary on the chapters, but I'll do my best to keep it to a minimum.

3. Naruto is Hokage! Among other changes. Rapid Deployment Squads are mostly medical teams that work as EMTs-Tsunade's invention. They'll be mentioned a few times, but they probably won't play a HUGE role. Udon is a medic-nin here just like he was in House Calls. He might get a larger role, I'm not sure yet.

4. Sasuke will be in this fic eventually and I have done a lot of tweaking with canon. For future reference, he is blind from the last battle of the war (against Zetsu or Madara, I'll let you guys decide) and he is 'redeemed'ish. The bit of canon I have twisted to accommodate this is that instead of swearing revenge on Konoha after Madara explains Itachi's situation to him, he went through an angst-coma realizing that he had betrayed everything his brother wanted him to become by becoming a villain rather than a hero. He turned his back on the village his brother loved and on the people who loved him. For me, this is the only thing that Kishi could have done to make the little mongrel at all redeemable and he blew the opportunity. Why am I bothering if I hate him so much? I suppose because I'm a total masochist. But don't worry, I'm not making him entirely redeemed. He absolutely will not be a saint in this. (Also, I'm leaving it to you guys to sort out what canon works here and what doesn't. I don't follow the series closely enough to understand what's going on... most people who DO follow the series closely don't know what's going on from what I've heard actually. Kishi is really just an awful writer, isn't he?)

5. Also for future reference: Sakura's regular team consists of Sasuke, Sai, and Yamato. More on the reason why Kakashi isn't heading them up next chapter. Also, now that I'm thinking of it, there will be more on what happened to Sakura's crush on Sasuke later.

6. I actually hate writing Neji's POV more than I hate writing Kakashi's if you can imagine. Kakashi at least has a wry sense of humor when I write him. Neji is just cold analysis and bleargh. Hopefully this problem will clear up as I get more familiar with everyone.

7. Yes, Neji was in fact pouting about missing Hanabi's birthday. More on this later. Also, he and his uncle are reasonably close and Hiashi gets rather Papa-Wolfy over him. More on this later too. ... Actually, no. More on it now-I refuse to make Hiashi a monster in this. It drives me crazy when people do that to him. I'll elaborate further on why it drives me nuts later, but just brace yourselves for a different spin on him here. Also, for future reference Hinata is more or less heading up the Hyuuga clan in this fics. More on that later too.

8. Another story without a large, over-arcing plot and a heavy focus on character and relationship development. Those seeking epic storytelling beware because this is how I roll!

9. For the sake of clarity: this is in fact a Neji/Sakura fic. Those who ship Neji/Tenten are more than welcomed to read, but please do not whine about the pairing. I like Tenten shipped with Shino (I think they're my beta OTP). As for the M-rating, it's there to give me necessary elbow room when it comes to gore and language. If there ends up being some citrus content, I'll apply the necessary warnings.

9. Apparently I have a lot to explain later. With any luck it'll all make sense and you'll be there to read it with me.

**(You've read, now review? Yay, nay? Undecided? Let me know!)**


	2. Past and Present

**Blind Spots**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Sakura still vividly remembered the day that Sasuke had returned to them. Or rather, the day he had allowed them to catch up to him.

He was a bloody mess propped against a tree trunk and when they stepped into the clearing he began to babble. Killing Danzo had done nothing to fix the gaping and vacuous hole in him, which had been growing, he said, since Itachi's death. Revenge, everything his clan had once meant to him, everything he had ever thought and known—none of it had any meaning anymore. She and Naruto had just looked at each other, weary and wary.

It was an hour before he let her close enough to tend to him and even then it was only because he had gone into shock from the blood loss. Naruto hadn't said anything in that time. Konoha was still in shambles, she was stricken with fear for Tsunade's life, Naruto was still reeling from Jiraiya's death and his fight with Pein and, and they were both still recovering from the loss and subsequent revival of so many of their friends. If the truth was told, they were as lost, as confused, and as hopelessly listless as Sasuke apparently was and, in retrospect, it was the perfect condition for them to be reunited under.

Neither of them would ever know what had gone on inside of him in the time that he was unconscious, but an hour later, Sasuke awoke determined to do what his brother had wanted him to all along and return honor to the Uchiha name. That had to start, he said in a quiet monotone, with Madara's death.

It had not been the reunion of hers and Naruto's dreams—he still refused to return to the Village with them—but for the time his promise to help had to be enough.

Sakura had been careful to hide her feelings that night. She had never confided in another soul the fact that she had outright panicked when Sasuke awoke and grabbed her arm. Her first impulse had been, to her shock, to drill him straight into the ground with her free hand—he was in the more vulnerable position, hadn't activated his Sharingan, was otherwise unarmed—but Naruto's presence had stopped her.

And it had been the only thing to stop her.

She had thought herself to be as much in love with him as ever up until that point. Then it died a swift and immediate death as a new and horrifying realization settled over her: she would never again trust this man.

Five years later, she still kept this secret. It was one among a thousand others that she'd never share with another person.

"Sakura."

She looked up from the sink, where she was washing a few dirtied plates. Sasuke kept his apartment remarkably neat and was more than capable of doing that particular chore himself, but it always made her nervous to be in his space and the only way she knew how to abate this was by keeping herself as occupied as possible.

He was standing in the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed and his head angled down and away as if to stare at the floor, an effect that was ruined by the heavy bandages that covered his eyes. Sakura did what she could not to think on the empty, scarred sockets under those layers.

"Well?" he prompted gruffly.

Sakura gave him a once over and turned back to the sink. "Do you even _own_ anything that you'd be embarrassed to be seen in?"

"Hokage or not, Naruto isn't above pranking a blind man."

"Good point."

It was strange. Sasuke had always been more comfortable than any of them with saying the 'B' word. Her hesitation always had something to do with a fear of rubbing salt into a wound and the fact that he didn't really _act_ all that blind. His reflexes were incredible and his other senses seemed heightened enough to compensate for his lack of sight, so his ability to fight was almost entirely unhindered. He could still wield a sword with enough competence to seriously menace men who _could_ see and he was working on a jutsu to better compensate for his handicap, one that would allow him to use other jutsu again with less fear of friendly fire.

All of that said, Sakura still found herself having to stop him, slip his outer robe off of his shoulders, and turn it right-side-out.

"But it's not pink or anything," she assured him as he shrugged back into the garment.

He sighed, annoyed now. "Are we ready to go?"

Sakura placed the last dish on the drying rack and then dried her hands on the nearest dish towel. "Sure."

Five years and she still found herself hesitant to let him follow her out of a room.

When he had officially been pardoned because of his contribution to the war effort and allowed to return to Konoha, there had been months and months of recovery—not just for him, but for all of Konoha. And it hadn't been so hard then, to deal with him when she could think of him as just another patient.

Then, when they were well enough, Team Kakashi was reformed along with many other teams to start raking money in for a desperately in-need Konoha. Sai, again, stood in for Sasuke, who had yet to learn to fight with his new handicap. A man who had relied on his eyes for everything in combat before couldn't become a blind badass overnight, even if he was a Uchiha (though, a deeply embittered part of Sakura wondered if Itachi could have). This had been fine too. The war had left her attached to her idiots and she liked being able to return to business as usual with them. To a degree, it was even better because Sasuke no longer loomed over everything they did and they were allowed to focus on other things, to enjoy themselves again. In fact, she didn't even have to deal with Sasuke most of the time.

Five years hobbled along. They went on missions as Team Kakashi, trained with Sasuke when they were in Konoha, helped Sai as he still struggled with normalcy, and, along with every other man and woman in their village, restored Konoha to its former glory. Close enough, anyway.

Things had been going along swimmingly. Then, for Sakura, all hell broke loose again and it broke loose all at once.

Six months ago, Tsunade stepped down as Hokage and, by unanimous vote, Naruto succeeded her. By this point, Sasuke was ready to step up to active duty and Naruto, against the vehement protests of his advisors, made it his first official act as Hokage to reestablish his friend as a ninja of Konohagakure.

It had given him no small amount of delight to remind the Uchiha that he was a Genin and it had given Sasuke no small amount of smug satisfaction to be promoted to Jounin within three weeks.

As nostalgic as it was to watch the pair engage in a contest of "Mine is Bigger Than Yours", Sakura found herself unable to enjoy it. As happy as she was for Naruto, the sudden shift in their team dynamic was hard to get used to. Sai and Kakashi could be playfully snarky little bastards, but she could handle them just fine and Naruto's cheerful buoyancy usually evened everything out. But Sasuke's presence was a dark cloud and it brought out the grimmer, quieter sides of Sai and Kakashi.

Then, four months ago, she and Kakashi were sent on a simple fetch and deliver mission that had turned quickly into a bloody slaughter with them, thankfully, doing rather than receiving the slaughtering. The only problem was that they were stranded in Earth Country and the people they had killed had numerous irritated colleagues eager to pick a bone with them. What followed was a two week hiking trip through the unforgiving mountains of northwestern Earth Country that had them battered and driven well beyond their limitations before they could even reach Wind.

Since then, Kakashi had led the team on only two missions following their adventure in Earth Country and after each he found himself in the hospital for exhaustion. After the last time, which had been almost three months ago now, Tsunade grounded him and placed him under indefinite observation. She wasn't saying much about his condition, but Sakura suspected that she already knew what was happening and every time she thought about it, she felt sick.

He wasn't recovering and storing chakra like he should. Chakra he should have been able to recharge with just a few hours of rest took almost a full day to come back to him. His control was slipping too. It was that last symptom that ate away at Sakura's nerves. She had caught him attempting to stand on the rain puddles in the training field not a week ago and, to her horror, saw that he seemed to be having a hard time of it.

She told herself that he was just overworked, but that did nothing to alleviate the fear she felt deep inside whenever she thought about it.

"Sakura."

With Kakashi on the bench for the foreseeable future, Yamato had been called in again to lead their team. After all, he was familiar with Sakura and Sai and willing to work with Sasuke, which was not an easy trait to come by. When Kakashi had made this little announcement Sakura felt a little relieved. She knew Yamato and respected him. They had gotten along well and understood each other.

The one problem with this was the fact that it had been five years since they had worked together and she was, in no way, the same girl now that she had been then. Case in point: in the present, it was rare that she was not struck by the urge to strangle him half-way through their missions and rarer yet that he didn't feel compelled to drag her into Tsunade's office after they returned, for a disciplinary meeting.

"Yamato." She dropped into the booth across from the man and Sai slid in beside her, leaving Sasuke to take the seat beside their captain.

So, this was her present: a team consisting of one man she didn't trust, another she couldn't stand, and a third with a very tenuous grasp on the basics of human interaction.

It was after their third mission together, when their debriefing had included a lot of passive aggressive sniping at one another, that Naruto formulated this plan. She supposed there were worst fates than having the Hokage order you to have lunch together every day, but she really couldn't think of any at the time. She resented the arrangement and resented Naruto for ordering it rather than just believing her when she said that there was no way the team, as it was, would ever work out. Sai and Sasuke never spoke to one another but the animosity between them was so palpable and intense that it was almost miasmic and while she and Yamato could play nice, she despised the way he treated her like some genin fresh from the academy.

It was a simple power struggle really.

Kakashi had trusted her judgment since the war and if she didn't follow through with a particular plan, he went with it. Yamato, the classically trained ANBU operative of fifteen plus years, just expected everything to be done as he ordered it to be and if it didn't happen that way there was hell to pay. Except, Sakura wasn't afraid of him in the least and in spars she was quite capable of handling herself and getting better all the time.

Their biggest fights came when he insisted that her designation as the team medic didn't give her power to act unilaterally. Sakura disagreed and argued that they were not in ANBU and that she was a jounin too. Recently, when it had become clear to her that none of that would ever really mean anything to him, she had taken to dismissing his complaints by telling him to take it up with the hospital administrator. This made the mild-mannered man's ears go red. For as many times as he actually did follow her advice, they both knew that he could talk to Tsunade until he was blue in the face and the worst the woman would ever do was slap Sakura on the wrists.

She understood that it was petty and beneath her, but she couldn't quell her anger enough to talk it out rationally with the man, who she knew surely had his reasons. All that mattered was that she had survived a war too now and she refused to take orders she disagreed with. If it came down to following through with a plan or ensuring her teammates' safety, the plan could just fuck itself with the nearest, sufficiently rusted object.

"How was the mission?"

Sakura looked to Sai and frowned. The table had been quiet except for when they ordered and then received their food and even then the chatter had been directed at the waitress. Sai caught her off guard b speaking. "What mission?"

"Your last RD run," he said as he stirred his bowl of noodles with his chopsticks. "I heard it was quite exciting."

The woman suppressed a smile. Ah, so it was curiosity that had forced him to ask now rather than wait until they were finished eating and on their own. "How did you hear about that?"

He spared her a glance that spoke volumes—just because he no longer worked with ANBU as often as he used to, it didn't mean that he didn't hear all of the gossip. "There was some talk of unruly patients," he went on.

"And what was being said about them?"

"It is safe to assume that you will not meet with quite so much resistance next time."

Sakura smiled and then, despite herself, her thoughts wandered to Neji. Had he been lying to her again that morning when he said that everything felt normal? She didn't really know the man all that well, but he had already proven himself untrustworthy when it came to that kind of thing. Just like a man. Kakashi did the same thing to her on a regular basis. Sasuke, too.

"You've been going on a lot of those runs."

She glanced at Yamato. "It's a new program and the teams need experienced medics to lead them," she replied.

"We could've used you in River."

Sasuke frowned at this and canted his head toward the man. "_When_? It was the only mission that's gone according to plan lately."

Sakura kicked at him under the table, but he dodged her (which did some awful things to her ego). "_Thanks_."

"I didn't mean it like that," the man grumbled back and she had the distinct feeling that, if he could have, he would have rolled his eyes at her. "It's the only mission we've had in months where we haven't been double-crossed by the clients. We did fine."

"Still," Yamato persisted with a slight scowl directed at the Uchiha that likely would not have bothered Sasuke even if he could see it. "It'd be nice if your team was your priority."

A muscle in Sakura's jaw clenched. "The village and its wounded are my priority," she replied. "Besides, I don't complain when you get called in by ANBU and leave us one short."

His eyes narrowed fractionally. "Because you enjoy it when I get called away by ANBU."

She smiled at this and nodded, unabashed. "_A_ _lot_."

Yamato's eyes narrowed further, but Sakura ignored him and looked to Sai and Sasuke. "I'm going to visit Kakashi later, if you'd like to come."

"Training," Sasuke grunted back.

"Both of you?"

Sai smiled, which immediately put her on edge because it was one of those fake approximations of a smile that always tipped her off to something being up. "Yes. Sasuke-kun would like to work on his accuracy and I offered to help."

Sakura bit her lip. It always made her nervous when the two of them trained together since it always looked a lot more like two people fighting to the death rather than two people having a friendly match. Given, their hostility would never let them have a _friendly_ match, but still it made her uneasy. She couldn't even properly identify where the resentment came from or who had started it. Sasuke was too apathetic to care that Sai had once been his 'replacement' and Sai knew that he always had a place on their team, despite Sasuke's return.

"Give Kakashi-senpai my best," Yamato said, cutting in on her thoughts. "I'll be with them."

She looked to him and spared a grateful smile. Well, it was nice to know that they were on the same page about _something_. "Will do."

* * *

Ino had been working for a long time to get the hospital to look a little less depressing than "a particularly sterile coffin" and it seemed that her efforts were finally paying off. Not that this was surprising. No one could best her when it came to the international sport of "Nag the Kage" and apparently Naruto had finally given into the blond's demands to fund a beautifying campaign for the hospital. Not that it took much to make Naruto give into anything. A sufficient amount of whining and pouting usually did the trick.

"Well?"

"Are you _sure_ the paint fumes won't bother the respiratory—"

"Sakura, Tsunade's already signed her name to it and Naruto okayed the funds. And yes, they're non-toxic paints with minimal odor and we'll have excellent ventilation," Ino said with a dismissive flap of her hand. "Just tell me you like the color and get out of here."

Sakura scowled a little and then turned around to eye the sunny yellow of the wall in front of her. "Well, I do like the color, but—"

"That's a girl," Ino cut in cheerfully. She then took her friend by the shoulders and turned her around, giving her an encouraging smack on the backside to start her down the hallway, like she was spurring on a particularly stubborn horse. "Now get."

Sakura shot the blond a damning look, but didn't say anything and started down the hallway, the heels of her sandals clicking gently against the tiled floor with every step. In one arm she cradled a bouquet of daisies and in the other she carried a book and a clip board. Several doors down, she stopped, took the handle, and stepped inside.

The room was a private room, one of the very best in the hospital and intended for patients whose stays could prove indefinite. The window and shades were opened, allowing in the bright, morning light and a fresh, blossom-scented breeze.

"You're here early."

Sakura smiled as she came around the privacy curtain and saw Kakashi sitting up in bed, wearing his typical undershirt and mask with a pair of loose sweats. In one hand he held Icha Icha and with the other he turned the pages. His hitai-ate was forgotten on the nightstand beside him next to the other two books in his collection, both of them ratty and worn, and the remnants of his breakfast.

"You didn't eat much," she said, laying down her clipboard and book and then poking at the food tray.

"I wasn't hungry much."

She shot him a disapproving look as she picked an empty vase off the radiator and went into the bathroom to fill it with water. She returned a moment later and then used a kunai to free the flowers from their plastic confinement before arranging them in the vase. "How do you like them?"

"They're very pretty."

Sakura smiled at him and then neared the bed again, slipping her kunai back into the thigh holster she had hidden under the hem of her sundress. "So," she began as she perched herself on the edge of his bed. "What's up? Did you sleep well?"

Kakashi creased an eye at her. "Well enough."

She nodded and reached for his chart that hung off the footboard of his bed, but Kakashi's hand on her thigh stopped her.

"Sakura-chan…"

Sakura immediately perked at this. He hadn't called her that in ages, not since they had fought together in war, where their relationship as subordinate and commander had changed into that of comrades and then friends. "Is something wrong?" she asked with a frown as she faced him.

"Tsunade-sama and I had a talk last night."

She stiffened. He wasn't looking at her, his tone was different too, and the expression in his eyes was the one that always put her on alert during missions. The light-hearted chat she had come for was obviously not to be. "And what did she say?"

Honestly, Sakura feared the answer.

Kakashi took a breath, rubbing at the back of his neck as his other hand began to gently knead her leg in a soothing gesture that was quickly making her panic. Finally, he looked at her. "You know that things have been touch and go for me since the war," he began. "With the Sharingan and… well, you're my medic."

He said this with a smile, but she couldn't focus on that or draw any comfort from it. His chakra system, brought one too many times to the brink of collapse, was delicate and had been for some time. Not that this had stopped him going on like it was business as usual.

"In Tsunade's words, I've come home for the last time." He lifted his eyes to hers. "You know that last mission almost did me in and, according to Tsunade, the next one will. Something about chakra system collapse—I guess you'd have to read her notes to know the technical terms." He took a breath. "I'm being pulled off the rosters and since she doesn't seem to think that this is something that'll get better, it's looking to be permanent."

Sakura sat motionless for a long moment. A thousand thoughts were flooding her mind and she wasn't sure which one to act on first. Finally, she settled for scooting closer and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Sorry for him, that his career had to end this way. Sorry that she wouldn't be fighting beside him anymore. Sorry, maybe more so for this than the others to her own disgust, that the temporary arrangement she despised had, in one fell swoop, become permanent.

"Don't be," he said. "I'm not one for an office job, but Naruto's asked me before to be his advisor and since I'm not going to be busy I thought I'd take him up on it."

Sakura nodded as she sat back. "You're still going to spar with me, right?"

"Of course."

Then, even though she was tearing up, she said, mostly to her lap, "This is really bad. I'm going to end up killing Yamato, you know."

Kakashi laughed. "You will not."

Sakura shook her head and wiped at her eyes. "I think I might."

"You'll work it out."

"He's driving me crazy."

"Funny. He's said the same thing about you."

She gave him a bland look. "He treats me like a child," she said. "If I don't follow his orders to the letter, he jumps all over my case. What does it matter to him _how_ I get something done, as long as I get it done? The last time we were out on a mission together, I fell behind to cover Sasuke's back and Yamato jumped on me for putting myself in danger, like I can't handle a fight!"

Kakashi sighed. "I've told you before: Yamato has worked in ANBU for years and in ANBU you don't question your superior's orders, you just do what you're told." He held up a finger when she opened her mouth to protest. "I know that you can handle yourself. I know that you're smart. I know that you're never as worried about the mission as you are about the men involved. I'm proud of you for that. But he's used to doing things differently."

"And I know that," Sakura replied, exasperated. "But I'm not going to change my priorities to suit him and he's not getting the message. Why can't he just trust me?"

"That's going to take time."

She rolled her eyes.

Kakashi gave her a warning look and then turned back to his book. "Also, it isn't fair that you hide behind Tsunade-sama. You know that's a fight he can't win."

"That's the point." She took a breath and worried the hem of her dress between her fingers. "It was hard enough when Naruto left our squad and Sasuke stepped in. It'll just be weird without you." She looked to him, feeling another wave of tears coming on and cursing as she looked away again. "It won't feel right at all."

The man's expression softened. "That'll take time too," he murmured.

Sakura nodded, wiping at her eyes as discreetly as she could while Kakashi fell silent again.

It was some time before he finally asked, "How are you and Sasuke getting along?"

Sakura looked to Kakashi and then looked away again, not sure if she was grateful for the change of subject or not. "We're… okay." She shrugged. "He takes orders and never argues—with me or Yamato. He's still struggling with maintaining that jutsu of his for longer than a few hours at a time and that never leaves him in a good mood, but… I don't know. He's Sasuke," she finished lamely, with another shrug.

The Copy-nin gave her a long, critical looked, but then simply nodded.

He didn't have to point out that it wasn't too many years ago that "He's Sasuke" would have been said with a far different inflection and an abundance of exclamation points. She shifted uncomfortably. "I don't…" She trailed off, shaking her head.

"That'll change too."

Sakura knotted her fingers in the fabric of her skirt. "What if it doesn't?"

"It will."

"It's already been five years."

Kakashi looked upward as he turned a page. "What do they say about time? It heals all wounds?" He looked to her, his expression softening again. "Give it a little longer."

She took a breath and nodded, even though she wasn't sure if she believed him.

"What's the book for?" he asked suddenly, nodding to the nightstand on his right.

Finally, a change of topic that didn't make her feel sick.

Sakura shrugged. "I thought that if you were asleep, I'd just hang around and read a little."

"Ah." He was awkward for just a moment and then squeezed his eyes in a smile. "Well, I'm awake. So, you'll have to entertain me."

She smiled as honestly as she could and turned toward him, letting her sandals slip off to the floor before pulling her feet up onto the bed. She folded them under her and let her back come to rest against the lip of the footboard. "So, hypothetically if I were going to kill Yamato, should it be in his sleep?"

Kakashi laughed out loud at this and shook his head. "You'd never manage it. His training wouldn't allow for you to get anywhere close enough."

* * *

"Senpai?"

"Udon."

The boy pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. "Should I be worried?"

Sakura spared the boy and amused half-smile. She was seated at the edge of a training field, watching a group of Academy students as they played tag. "Worried about what?"

Udon had caught her off guard when he had approached her over a year ago and formally requested that she take him on as a student. She had laughed at first until she realized that he was quite serious. She was, in his words, the logical choice, something she had protested vehemently as Shizune had years of experience on her and as long as Tsunade was alive she'd always be second rate in comparison. His mind, however, was set.

Udon glanced at the field and then back to the woman, who was carefully peeling an apple with a kunai. "This."

"I'm not watching them because my biological clock is ticking if that's what you're afraid of." She smiled good-naturedly.

"I was concerned more with why you weren't at the hospital. I have spent the last half hour looking for you."

She shrugged. "I wasn't needed."

"Ah."

She looked at him and then motioned with her knife for him to sit beside her. "Did you get to the reading I assigned you?"

"I finished all of it, actually."

"Oh? What about the filing?"

"That is done as well. I've also looked over those scrolls on sealing techniques."

"I see."

He spared her an expectant look. "Do you have anything else for me to do?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him and then reached over and shoved him onto his back, knocking the air out of his lungs with a quiet _oomph_. "Relax."

Udon scowled and lifted a hand to adjust his glasses. "I meant something productive," he said, but he did not make a move to sit up or even look at her. Instead, he spoke directly to the sky, which she couldn't help but find a little funny. He was so serious about following orders.

She turned back to her apple and shrugged one shoulder. "Do you know how many potential medics drop out of the program before finishing because they can't hack it?"

"I believe the figure is somewhere in the sixties."

"Seventies." Sakura sliced off a piece of apple and handed it to him. "Do you know how many others end up taking prolonged leaves of absence during their first year of field work due to the mental strain?"

He sighed and sat up, considering the piece of fruit in his hand. "The last I was aware, that figure was somewhere in the seventies as well."

"So it makes sense to relax every now and then, doesn't it?"

"I have already completed my training and my first year of field work. Neither of those statistics apply to me," he argued.

Sakura twirled the ringed end of the kunai around one finger as she stared at him. "Do you know the suicide rate among medics?"

Udon glanced at her. "I… I don't know the exact figure," he murmured, lifting a hand to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. "I understand that it's higher than any other area of field work."

"Higher than ANBU, even."

He glanced at her, again.

"And they encourage suicide in some cases," she said, cheerfully.

Udon furrowed his brow and looked away. "Are you telling me I work too hard?"

She snorted. "You've already blown through the study material I gave you for this week. I'd say there's a significant chance that that's exactly what I'm telling you." She cut off a piece of apple for herself and bit into it. "We're not machines. Medics need to take care of themselves as much as they need to tend to their patients. I've seen people break down in the field before. It isn't pretty."

He frowned and Sakura cut them each another piece of apple as he mulled over her words.

"I'm supposed to meet with Konohamaru and Moegi today," he murmured. "I was going to cancel to finish some research…" He trailed off as he turned toward her. "I shouldn't, should I?"

She smiled. "Your team's more important than research, yes."

Udon nodded, slowly. "What are you going to do for the rest of the day?"

"I'm meeting with Tsunade-sama in an hour."

"Are still working on the Yin Seal?"

She laughed a little pathetically. "Yeah. At the rate I'm going, I don't think I'll ever get it down."

Udon got to his feet. "I think you need to have more faith in yourself, Senpai," he said, his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his trousers. "I should go now. I'll see you tomorrow."

Sakura nodded and waved him off, smiling as she watched him go before turning back to watch the students racing around the field.

* * *

1. WHOO! Two chapters already! Also, OMG THANK YOU! The response to this was HUGE and it made me all glowy and squee-y. You guys are seriously the best.

2. So right to chapter related notes: So. Much. Exposition! Oh my God, I'm really sorry about that guys. This chapter really piles on the "Why we're here now" explanations. But it all had to come out somehow. Too bad it came out kind of clunky. Whatever.

3. I KNOW! I incapacitated Kakashi. I hated doing it, but honestly I'm such a Sakura/Kakashi fangirl that if he were in this fic more, I'd have a hard time keeping things between them platonic, so here's my way of sort of shuffling him out of the big picture. I don't think I hit quite the note I wanted to with this, but it'll come up a lot later. Myself, I can't see Kakashi getting angry at this kind of thing. I think he'd always expect to die on the field, so now there's not really anger or anything, just confusion. There will be some fiddling with that concept later. I don't know.

4. No Neji this chapter, but that's because next chapter will be solely focused on him and his current situation with his team and clan, so just sit tight and if you behave yourselves I might find someway to get him shirtless. (Yes, that is how I will ALWAYS try to bribe reviews out of you people.)

5. Sasuke. He's getting all human-y on me and I don't know if I'm comfortable with that because I'm really starting to like this version of him. I really mourn the fact that Kishi could have done something wonderful with him and instead failed. Epically. Also, if people have a beef with the timeline I established, they'll just have to deal with it. I don't know how or when everything went down in the manga and I don't care. Here, it's probably best to imagine that Madara wasn't with Sasuke (and I think he was?) when he confronted Danzo. Sasuke just went to handle the little bastard himself (maybe even as Naruto's fight with Pein was going on?) and killed him, but had the shit beaten out of him too (hey, Danzo was pretty badass. I mean I hate the fucker but he was kind of badass). Maybe a day later, Sakura and Naruto get wind of Danzo's death and of Sasuke in the area and hunt him down. Sasuke, in the midst of realizing that Danzo was right when he pointed out that he was pretty much pissing on everything Itachi had stood for, has a break down and from there is just goes downhill. None of this is supposed to be concrete and you're all welcomed to make your own interpretations-whatever makes sense to you.

6. I LOVE Yamato. I just want to get that out of the way before anyone accuses me of treating him badly here. We're looking at this from Sakura's perspective, so we're not really getting his story yet. He has his reasons-really good ones-and I'll go into depth about them later. But seeing as this is the man who said he didn't mind "ruling with terror", I really don't see this as too out of character. When he gives orders, he expects shit to get done. He doesn't trust Sakura to act unilaterally because... well, I can only imagine the assloads of trust issues that man must have. Think about his background for just a sec and tell me he doesn't.

7. Udon! I love Udon, I really do. Here we won't really look into that "Udon is the next Kabuto" theory of mine, but there will be hints.

8. SAI! Fangirls, you may now squee. Sai here will be much the same creature he is in House Calls just a little more... unstable. I suppose. I'm shooting for a more "realistic" depiction of how someone like him might go about coping with feelings

9. Back to Sasuke (yeah, I know, that little shit). He's blind (and for those of you who hate him A LOT, he's also disfigured under those wraps he wears). The jutsu that Sakura mentions will be explained more in depth later, but it ties in with his relation to snakes.

10. Overall, I kind of like this chapter, but I'm not crazy about it. I had to edit it a whole bunch to get the tone right and, bah. I won't get into it. But if you guys spot any huge mistakes or inconsistencies that probably came from the repeated editting, let me know.

**(Like I said, reviews will probably get you a shirtless Neji and if you're all really good, maybe you'll get a sweaty, shirtless Neji. Yum. Much love, guys!)**


	3. Friends and Family

**Blind Spots**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"Move—c'mon, shift your weight forward. Neji! Your stance has to be consistent."

"What is the point of this?"

"I'm _bored_."

Neji shot Tenten and exasperated look over his shoulder. After the meeting with Tsunade-sama and Sakura, his uncle had suggested that he rest, which he took some liberties with as it was only a suggestion rather than, say, an order. ANBU missions always made him anxious to see his own team again and he wasn't willing to put it off. "Then why am I the one with the bow?" he demanded, scowling when she grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tried to maneuver him around.

"Because I'm _bored_," she replied petulantly.

He rolled his eyes. "I can see that this argument is going nowhere fast." He stepped backwards to step on one of her feet as she was attempting to kick his right foot forward. "Stop."

"Well, stop fighting me!" Tenten retorted, laughing and dodging his foot. She then shoved him with her hip, forcing him to step forward to catch himself. "Ha! Good. Now, nock the arrow and lift the bow—your bow-arm shoulder is too high."

Neji shot her a damning look as she began to reposition him again, like a doll. "Would you just let me take a shot?" he demanded.

"Aren't we cranky today? Look, you'll wreck your shoulder like that. And miss."

Annoyed, he shook her off and drew the arrow back, taking aim at a target posted on a tree across the field. "I have never seen you use a bow," he noted conversationally in an attempt to ignore her. "You prefer close range weapons in combat."

"Yeah, long range really isn't my thing," Tenten agreed with a shrug, still eyeing his positioning with disapproval. "It's something Gai just got me started on." She caught the look he shot her way. "I know, right? He thought I needed a new challenge and I really like it—for sport at least. Anyway, your bow-arm shoulder is still too high."

Neji ignored her, drew the string back a little farther, and released.

An instant later this was followed by a loud, out-of-character curse as the string went off its set course and snapped against his arm while the arrow whizzed off and hit a tree about six feet to the left of his target.

"Nice," Tenten chimed unhelpfully.

Neji called her a hundred very ungentlemanly things under his breath that she ignored as she took the bow from him. Tucking the weapon under one arm, she reached out to roll his sleeve up and revealed an angry, red mark. "Oh yeah," she said. "You'll need Hinata to look at that when you get back to the compound. It'll be a bitch in the morning otherwise."

He scowled a little.

"So what did we learn about listening?" she asked with a wide, teasing grin. "Maybe you need to see Sakura again?"

Neji flinched. "Haruno told you about that?"

"Gods no," Tenten scoffed. "I haven't even seen her. Besides, she doesn't talk about any of her patients like that—not even the really stupid ones. I just heard it on the grapevine."

He scowled again.

Tenten laughed. "Oh, c'mon, don't be like that. It's funny."

"I suppose that would depend entirely on your part in the story." He paused and frowned a little. "Would be as funny if I were not a Hyuuga?"

"Um, yeah?" She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Why do you think Kiba's never lived down that thermometer incident?" She snorted. "What does it have to do with you being a Hyuuga?"

Neji shrugged, watching her carefully as she nocked an arrow and then lifted the bow to take aim. "People like to see others they view as "high and mighty" fall every now and then," he explained coolly. "It reassures them."

Tenten frowned. "Well," she began, her head tipped thoughtfully as she paused from taking her shot, "as funny as it is to see you taken down a peg every once in a while, I think in this instance it's just another "Sakura puts someone in their place" story. It's not like she targeted you specifically for any reason other than that you were being a pain in the ass. She has a habit of that at the hospital, you know."

"Actually, I did not," he replied. "I was not even aware of the "thermometer incident" and I do not think I wish to be informed of the details." He shot her a meaningful look and she closed her mouth and grinned at him. After a moment he sighed, almost involuntarily. "I wish my uncle had not reacted so rashly, though."

"Why?"

Neji rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "She was doing only what she thought was for the best," he admitted. "She was doing her job."

Tenten let out a quiet huff of laughter. "Well, that and you lied about still be injured and that really wasn't her fault." She shot him a look as she raised her bow again. "But it was kind of cool, wasn't it? I mean, the old man got his hackles all up over you and was ready to confront Tsunade-sama about it, which most men wouldn't do without a sturdy fortifying wall and a small battalion of heavily-armed soldiers between them and her."

Neji allowed himself a small smile.

She went on: "Besides, it's not like Sakura got into any trouble. At worst your uncle might not be her biggest fan, but you can patch that up pretty quick by just explaining what really happened."

An excellent point. Sakura was in a protected position. Even Hyuuga Hiashi couldn't reach her from where she sat comfortably between the Fifth and Sixth. It was a comforting notion, actually. If she had gotten into any kind of trouble, he would have had to sort it out and that would have been, in Shikamaru's words, incredibly troublesome.

"Gai-sensei!"

Neji snapped to attention at the exclamation and realized that Tenten had finally taken her shot, only for the arrow to be intercepted by Gai who had appeared and, apparently, snatched it right out the air.

Neji smirked faintly.

Tenten, thankfully, took it with good humor and smiled at the man. "You can be such a show-off," she scolded.

Gai let out a booming laugh. "Forgive me, I could not resist," he replied, twirling the arrow between his callused fingers before offering it to her, fletching first.

Lee, at his left, looked excited and intrigued. "Tenten," he began in a cajoling tone, "My dearest and—"

"_No_," the woman cut in with a knowing look. "I'm liable to hit you." She shot a narrow look at Gai. "I could have hit Gai-sensei."

"Nonsense!" the man laughed.

Tenten half-pouted, half-scowled in response to this, but didn't dignify it with a real response as she nocked the arrow again and turned back toward the target. "What's on the schedule today?"

"Well…" Gai stepped back to evaluate her stance and then moved to correct the positioning of her shoulders. "Try that," he murmured before again stepping back. "Given that we have all been very busy—Neji, I'm glad to see that you have come home safely—a little fun wouldn't go amiss, would it?"

Neji nodded in reply, gratified by the smile the man beamed at him.

"A great idea, Gai-sensei!" Lee chirped. "I am sure it would do us all some good!"

"That depends," Tenten cut in with a brief, backwards glance. "You have a very different definition of fun than at least two of us here." Her eyes narrowed a little and then she released the bowstring. The arrow cut sharply through the air and buried itself in the direct center of the target, earning a whoop from the girl, who turned immediately to give Lee a high-five as Gai clapped her on the back.

Neji, who was looking at the arrow and wondering if he should tell her that she was off-center by at least six inches, turned back to look at Tenten, who was eyeing him expectantly. He smirked instead. "What?"

"What?" she repeated with a scoff. "Look at that shot; I've only been doing this for a couple weeks! C'mon, tell me who's awesome?"

He glanced back at the arrow. "Isn't that what you're paid to do?"

Tenten's cheeks pinked with playful annoyance and she lunged at him, drawing an arrow from her quiver, which she managed to soundly crack across one of the man's shoulders as he tried to dodge around her. "Ha!" she exclaimed, only to yelp and turn tail as he lunged back at her.

Gai, with two fingers in his mouth, whistled to them as they ran across the clearing. "To the lake, Tenten!" he shouted.

The woman laughed and came to a sudden stop to change direction, pirouetting around her Hyuuga teammate and fending his reach off with another _whack_ of the arrow in her hand, this time across the back of his already sore forearm. "Lee, c'mon! You're on my side!"

"Right!"

Neji threw himself to the side as Lee attempted to drop-kick him and retaliated with a smile, lunging at his teammate, his fingers poised to strike. He bent backwards to avoid a kick to the head and then turned a flip to dodge the next strike aimed at his knees. Before his feet hit the ground, he threw a handful of kunai Lee's way and each of them exploded, forcing the taijutsu specialist back several feet.

"Oh, you thief!" Tenten shouted from where she crouched in a tree at the edge of the clearing, her hand at her hip to check one of her pouches. "When did you grab those?"

"When you were manhandling me!" Neji called back, jumping backwards as Lee came at him again. He dodged around the first two blows and ducked under the third, pivoting on one foot, and attempting to land a strike to Lee's back, but he missed when his teammate threw himself forward to avoid it. He tumbled through the grass and came up on all fours in a crouch.

Just as he was about to retaliate, Tenten whistled to him. "C'mon Lee, we'll never get to the lake at this rate!"

Lee replied by giving her two thumbs-up before then throwing Neji a cheery salute and following after his female teammate.

Neji was just about to go after them when he caught a glimpse of a supremely amused Gai approaching from the corner of his eye. He coughed and straightened his tunic. "It's gratifying," the older man began with an even wider smile, "to see that the three of you can still enjoy one another after all these years."

The Hyuuga nodded.

Gai laid a large hand on Neji's shoulder as they began to walk. "How was your mission?"

Neji shook his head. "Exhausting," he muttered. "Bothersome." Then, as an afterthought he added, with an indignant snort, "Humiliating."

"Yes, I heard," the Green Beast replied with a chuckle. "I hope you will not let this experience color your opinion of Sakura. She really is a very lovely and well-meaning young woman." He paused and then added, "_Spirited_, but lovely. I'm sure she had her reasons."

Neji glanced away, worrying the hem of one sleeve between his thumb and forefinger. "I may have given her a few."

Gai laughed again at this. "What was so important that you had to tempt the young lady's ire?"

Neji looked up at him and then, with a sigh, it all poured out: the panic he had felt for his subordinates, his rage at that weasel of an informant, and the frustration with having been fooled, even for a second, by that genjutsu. Then, more sheepishly, he confessed his irritation with having missed Hanabi's birthday. Butting heads with someone, in light of all of this, had probably been inevitable and it was just unfortunate that that person had been Sakura.

Predictably, Gai rewarded this with a mighty laugh and a bruising one-armed hug that actually did do something to bring a very small smile to Neji's lips.

When he was younger, he did not enjoy the man's antics in the slightest. Over the years, outright disapproval had given away to respect tempered with only the occasional bout of cringing mortification. At first, when his annoyance was just beginning to wane, he thought that possibly it was an act. Gai was a very powerful, very talented, and very formidable person and what better way to deceive his enemies into underestimating him than to act the part of a bellowing, blithering oaf?

This was not the case, Neji eventually learned. Gai was no great deceiver (unless he _was_, a concept which Neji left alone to avoid the headache guaranteed by trying to untangle the implications of Gai actually being some sort of maniacal genius). What he thought, what he felt, what he shouted from the top of his lungs was all expressed with completely unfettered sincerity. Gai did believe in the power of love and youth and friendship and he did so with unabashed glee and whole-heartedness. This flew in the faces of the basic, ninja principles and the way that some viewed their cold, world-weary stoicism as lifting them above people like Gai.

If Gai was aware of this disapproval, and he had to be, he didn't care. Neji admired this more than he could say and not long after coming to these conclusions, he came to another one: he would follow Gai into hell if the man asked him to do so. In fact, it would take some effort to stop him.

"Did you lose anyone?" Gai asked, bringing Neji back to the present.

"No."

"And the informant?"

"Dead."

"And I am sure that dear Hanabi-chan will understand?"

"Of course."

Gai squeezed Neji's shoulders again. "It sounds like victory all around, then," he said, but as his voice had not reacquired its characteristic boom, Neji knew that there was yet more to come. "There is no way to control every variable in life or in battle, Neji. You know this. The best that can be hoped for is that things work out in such a way as to be beneficial to our end goals, whether everything goes according to our plans or not."

Neji nodded and when Gai's arm dropped from his shoulder he looked up at the man. "I think I require another to aid me in catching up to both Tenten and Lee," he said evenly.

Gai grinned with all of his teeth at once and laughed. "Yes!" he shouted. "I will happily assist you in this endeavor! Come, we must not let them gain any more ground!"

* * *

Neji smirked at Tenten when he saw her expression upon realizing that he and Gai had beaten her and Lee to the lake.

She approached with staccato, frustration-imbued steps while Lee bounded toward them, howling about speed and determination, grinning like a madman as he congratulated them on their hard-won victory and successful overcoming of the odds.

Tenten agreed with a pretty laugh and a dismissive flap of her hand. Then, in a move that Neji should have really seen coming, she shoved both him and Lee off either side of the dock and into the water.

* * *

Neji didn't appreciate the guard's snickering upon his return to Konoha dripping wet and decided to make an effort to not be seen once he reached to the Hyuuga estate.

The compound included several dozen acres walled in with hedgerows and high, wooden fences to separate its streets from the rest of the village. A single, stone-paved road with many branching side streets and subdivisions circled around the Main House at the center with the many houses of the branch families littering these roads.

The set-up was simple. However, navigating it was not, at least not for anyone from outside of the clan. The streets circled around or ended abruptly and the houses were all very similar with gardens and yards sometimes rambling together and at other times separated by stone walls and hedgerows too high to properly see over. It was a proper maze and intentionally designed to be so.

"Neji?"

He stopped short and turned toward the voice. "Hinata."

The young woman beamed at him, her pearly eyes shining happily.

It was not all that long ago that Neji hated the girl. Now, he thought of her as his sister and respected her as the clan elader. Without question, he'd kill for her—not out of his duty to the clan, but protectiveness and heartfelt love. He still cringed whenever he thought of their youth and how he had treated her.

Without warning, Hinata lunged forward and embraced him before he could protest. "I'm so glad that you're home," she murmured. "I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to see you this morning. You and Father were busy from what I understand." She paused and then pulled away with a pretty frown before wryly lifting a hand and running a lock of his hair between her fore and middle fingers, wringing a few drops of water free of the strands. "You're wet."

Neji smiled back. "Tenten shoved me into the lake."

Hinata laughed quietly at this. "Good for her," she teased and then ignored his slight, disapproving frown. "You should change and then maybe you would like to have a late lunch with me? I've been in meetings all day and didn't have the chance to eat."

"Of course," he said. "Will Hanabi be joining us? I did not see her this morning and I did not have the chance to give her my gift."

His cousin smiled. "Well, she said she would, but she was going to train and she does tend to lose track of time."

"Train with whom?"

"Team Ebisu," Hinata replied. "She's gotten to be quite good friends with Moegi-chan. I believe she's even accepted to take a mission with them." She shooed him with both hands. "Go and change. We'll talk when we eat."

* * *

Hinata had chosen to eat in her private den, which smelled of parchment and lilies, in order to avoid interruption. She and Neji were seated in front of the opened screens that allowed a view of the back garden of the Main House when they both lifted their heads at the same time, both of them detecting the telltale pattering of feet against the hardwood floors downstairs.

A few moments later, the two of them tipping their heads to follow the sound, the door to the study flew open and Hanabi stumbled in, her back to the occupants as she finished the sash of her yukata, which she obviously sloppily jerked on over an undershirt and trousers, revealed by the way the skirt had caught on her rolled-up pant leg on one side.

"Time!" she demanded.

"You're twenty minutes late," Hinata replied with an openly amused smile at her sister.

"Darn-it!" This was accompanied by a stomp of her foot before she spun around to face her sister and then started at the sight of her cousin. She beamed. "Neji! You're home!" She looked to her sister again, the smile fading. "_Twenty_ minutes? Are you sure?"

Hinata glanced at the clock again. "Maybe only nineteen," she said humorously.

Hanabi sighed and trudged over to them, defeated. Hinata reached out and gently straightened her sister's skirt as the girl passed her to sit on the side of the table with her back to the windows. "I'm really sorry," she said, looking at Hinata as she slumped to her zabuton. "I left on time, I swear! I even left before Ebisu-senpai could finish debriefing us!"

"I believe you," Hinata replied with a shrug. She gestured to the small spread in front of them. "Eat."

Hanabi frowned at her sister. "I think you're doing that wrong," she said. "The elders always get angry about tardiness. They say it's disrespectful."

The older girl smiled and offered a plate of freshly sliced fruit to her sister. "I am not the elders and I am not threatened by a little tardiness."

Neji smiled to himself. From Hinata, that was almost outright defiance. "It's good to see you, Hanabi."

She looked to him and smiled again. "You too," she said. "I'm supposed to leave tomorrow morning on a mission and I was hoping you'd be home before I left. How was your mission, anyway? Udon-kun mentioned that his RDS had tended to your team, but he wouldn't give me any details about it. Even when I told him that I knew it was an ANBU assignment, but he still wouldn't talk. You weren't hurt, were you?"

Hinata's eyes were on him now too and he wondered if she knew about his run-in with Haruno's temper. He'd have to ask her later when they were in private. She wasn't given to listening to gossip like Tenten, who in turn had been pretty sure that Haruno didn't talk about her patients. "It was nothing serious," he replied. "I'm fine."

"I'm glad."

Neji returned to his tea, carefully hiding his smirk in his cup as Hanabi stared at him, willing him to say something. After a while she deflated and resignedly began to pick at her food. "If tardiness does not bother you, Hanabi-chan, I have a gift for you," he said finally.

The younger girl's face lit up. "What is it?"

"I got them when I was in Iron Country."

"Show me!" she demanded petulantly.

Neji shared a look with Hinata, who smiled into her tea, and then got to his feet. "They're in my room."

Hanabi immediately got to her feet, staggering over the hem of her yukata a little and then righting herself and grabbing her cousin's arm. "Come on!" she prompted, dragging him toward the door.

Neji followed his cousin as she guided him through the Main House and outside. They crossed the courtyard gardens to a smaller, unattached building built in the same style as the Main House and located on the same square of land. There were a few others like it, all of them intended for relatives of the Main House. In the past he had shared it with his father.

The house was spotless inside through a combination of meticulous habits and infrequent use. He was rarely home, always at the Main House with Hinata and Hanabi or training or on a mission, which left him with a front room and den he never had any use for. His bedroom, on the other hand, was a different story. It was his corner of the world, his sanctuary in many respects, so he let his shoes and clothes lay wherever they happened to fall and he didn't clean unless laundry suddenly became a pressing issue.

Hanabi waited eagerly by the door as he went to his desk and removed a varnished, mahogany box from the top drawer. He returned to the door and lifted the box above Hanabi's head as she made a grab for it. He smiled when she clutched at the back of his tunic and followed after him down the hallway, still reaching for the gift.

"Neji!" she chastised, her tone bordering on a whine.

He showed mercy once they reached the sitting room. He knelt down at the low table and when Hanabi took the place opposite of him, he offered her the gift with both hands.

She accepted it eagerly with both hands and set it down before undoing the latch and opening the lid. "Oh, Nii-san," she murmured. She lifted one kanzashi from the set that lay inside the box. It, like the others, was decorated with silk peach blossoms and silk streamers. "They're so pretty! But…" She trailed off with a frown.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Hanabi offered him a weak smile. "Well, I'm afraid I won't get much use out of them."

"Why's that?"

She looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if they really suit me."

"How not?"

The girl shot him a supremely bored look. "You know me," she insisted and then she plucked at her yukata. "I barely got this thing tied and I'm always stumbling over the hem and I can never get my hair to stay up. Besides, I'm just a ninja. Hinata is the lady." She smacked her forehead suddenly and groaned. "And the diplomat. I really do like them, Neji, I swear! I don't want to sound ungrateful."

Neji was torn. Hanabi didn't often express her insecurities because that was beneath a Hyuuga, so he was happy that she was willing to confide in him. At the same time, he was pissed. Hanabi felt inadequate and he knew who to blame for this. "No one expects you to be your sister," he said plainly as he reached out to push a few wild locks of hair off her forehead. "Least of all me. You are, however, more than just a ninja."

She scoffed softly in doubt. "Like what?"

"For one, a young woman." His eyes softened at her surprised expression and he offered the kanzashi out to her again. "Don't listen to the elders. You are more than what you do for the clan and the village."

Hanabi averted her stare. "Ever since I refused to fight Hinata for the leadership rights, the elders have been treating me… differently. I'm afraid to make them mad. I don't know…" She paused and made a face. "I don't know what they'll do."

"They won't _do_ anything," Neji replied matter-of-factly. "I won't let them. Neither will Hinata."

She stared at him for a moment and then offered a soft smile. She examined the kanzashi she held and then lifted her hands to twist her unruly hair into a messy knot, which she pushed the pin into. She looked to her cousin for approval.

Neji smiled back. "I think," he said and reached out to pull the pin free, "You should ask Hinata for some help with those."

Hanabi laughed and snatched the pin back from him.

* * *

"Why did I listen to you?"

"It isn't so bad!"

"Which part of having an arrow stuck through your leg isn't so bad?"

"Not helping, Neji."

"Why _did_ you listen to him?"

"Not. _Helping_."

"How did you even hit him?"

"Neji!"

It went without saying, but half-carrying his limping teammate through the hospital corridor was not something that had been on Neji's to-do list. Nevertheless, Lee had an arm around him and Tenten both, each of them had an arm locked around his waist, and an arrow, which Tenten had broken off, protruded from the Green Beast's left thigh. His leg warmers and Jonin vest were, rather conspicuously, missing. It had taken both Neji and Tenten both to remove them.

"My head feels strange," Lee noted, his head slumped backwards and his eyes blearily focused on the ceiling.

"Given your condition and the amount of drugs Tenten gave you from the med-kit, I think that's normal, Lee," Neji replied. "Tenten, where are we going?"

"Sakura's office is around the next corner, to the right," Tenten said, nodding to the end of the hallway.

"We didn't sign in."

"Sakura doesn't make any of the Konoha Eleven sign in." She shot him a frown. "Gods, you really _aren't_ around very much, are you?"

"Can't be helped," the Hyuuga grunted back.

The girl frowned at this. "I feel like we should discuss that. I mean, now that I think about it you're gone a _lot_. If you're not away with ANBU, you're out with us. Do you even know what a vacation _is_?"

"Tenten, is it really the time? Besides, I am on vacation _now_. Four weeks, in fact."

"I don't think that's nearly long enough and don't give me that look, there's no reason we can't discuss this now. I didn't even hit an artery or anything this time."

Neji blinked at her. "How frequently do you puncture our teammate when I'm not around?"

The weapon's mistress looked extremely affronted by this, but was cut short when someone rounded the corner and nearly ran head-first into them. The head of petal-pink hair gave her away immediately.

"Excuse—oh! Hey—_oh_." Sakura's eyes bounced between them before finally settling on Lee's leg. She stepped back and pressed the heel of one hand to her mouth. After a moment, she said, in a slow and calculated manner: "An arrow. That's new for you, Tenten."

"Yeah, _well_ I have a new hobby and Lee was…" Tenten sighed and rolled her eyes. "It was _his_ idea."

The pinkette raised one, thin eyebrow. "Right. Gimme."

Tenten quickly lifted Lee's arm over her head and passed him off to Sakura, prompting Neji to release him as well. To his surprise, Sakura didn't collapse under Lee's limp, muscle-bound frame as it came down on her, although he realized a second later that surprise wasn't really warranted. It was Sakura. She just barely swayed as Lee slumped into her, his arm around her shoulders.

"Sakura-san!" he chirped when he lifted his head and focused his eyes on her.

She smiled at him. "Hey, Lee. How many pain killers did Tenten give you this time?"

Lee stared ponderously at the ceiling. "I can't feel my feet," he concluded at length.

"Sounds about right." Sakura smiled at Tenten and Neji both as Lee's head slumped against hers. "Do you want to come with? I'll have this patched in no time."

The weapons mistress made a face. "I'm good. Let me know when you're done, okay? Lee, I'll be in the waiting room."

The Green Beast gave a lazy thumbs-up and a bright smile, but both of these faltered when his knees abruptly gave out and Sakura nearly lost her grip on him. Neji caught him easily. "I'll come back with you," he volunteered, pulling Lee's arm around his shoulders once again. "Tenten, maybe you should find Gai-sensei and let him know what happened."

"I'm not leaving," she replied. "He'll figure it out."

Neji nodded and turned to help Sakura down the hallway with Lee.

"It's so strange that she's squeamish," Sakura noted aloud to make conversation as they passed various doors and nurses moved quickly out of the way to allow them to pass. At this point, Lee seemed almost completely unconscious, his head still resting against Sakura's shoulder.

"She's not," Neji replied.

"What?"

"She specializes in close combat with bladed weaponry and has treated our injuries on the field on numerous occasions," he said. "She is not squeamish."

Sakura looked bewildered. "Then why doesn't she ever come back here? I mean, for as much as she brings Lee in, she never comes back to the exam room with him."

Neji shrugged one shoulder. "She hates hospitals."

The medic frowned as she off-handedly kicked opened her office door. Inside there was a desk stacked high with papers and shoved off into one corner and front and center there was a very Spartan exam table. "I never knew that," she murmured. "Do you know why?"

"She has never given me a reason for it," he answered, watching as Sakura hefted the now completely unconscious Lee easily onto the table and, being mindful of his leg, rolled him onto his back. "I suspect it goes back to our days as Genin, when Lee and I were first seriously injured; him while facing Gaara and me during the first attempt to retrieve Sasuke."

Sakura hummed at this but then seemingly fell into a trance as she began to methodically check Lee's vitals before pressing two glowing green hands into his chest and pushing a surge of chakra into his body. Curiosity taking him, the Hyuuga ducked his head and mumbled, very quietly to himself: "_Byakugan_."

He immediately narrowed his field of vision to concentrate solely on his teammate and the medic hovering over him. He had never really observed a healing before and it was fascinating to watch the way Sakura's chakra began to flow freely through Lee's system. It swept quickly through him, saturating his bone marrow and muscular tissue, wrapping around his veins and joints, and then finally seeping into his chakra system.

"You know what the problem is," he began, frowning to himself. "Why not concentrate your efforts there?"

Sakura glanced at him, looking genuinely taken aback and then she turned back to her work with a shake of her head. "An in-depth evaluation is a good first step when you can take the time. Right now, the arrow isn't in any position to have pierced an artery, it isn't too deeply buried, and it's stopping further blood loss by staying just where it is. So, yes, I know the diagnosis, but I don't want to overlook anything." She glanced over at him. "Chest wounds are a good contrast to keep in mind. Any sort of thoracic trauma requires immediate and direct attention."

He raised an eyebrow at this, letting his Byakugan fade. Well, that was rather pointed of her. "If a chest wound isn't something you should waste time getting to, why did you take my mask?"

She spared him another sideways look. "Signs of hemorrhaging in the eyes can tell you a lot about the person's condition—like indicating a possible head injury—as can blood from the mouth or nostrils, which are signs of internal bleeding. True, I could assess damage with my chakra, but in that situation it takes less time to just look and find out what I'm getting into."

"You could have asked."

Sakura let out an unladylike snort. "Right, because you were being just _so_ cooperative at the time."

Neji glowered at her, but couldn't find a reasonable argument to defend himself with. He hadn't been in any mood to do what he was told that night and could not honestly say that he would have let her help him in any way, no matter her approach. "How bad was it?"

"Your right lung was collapsed and you had several fractured ribs, among other things."

He stared at her, taken aback. "I fought—"

"Kakashi once took out four missing-nin by himself with a dislocated shoulder, severe blood loss, and no chakra to work with," she cut in, her tone flat and bored as she removed a few tools from a chest of drawers beside the exam table and laid them out on a tray to her right. "I've seen Gai-senpai do even crazier things." She glanced at him. "Adrenaline is a wonderful thing."

Neji nodded, but none of this brought him any kind of comfort. "Why didn't you mention any of that?"

Sakura shrugged, cutting into Lee's pant leg with a pair of scissors and then pulling the green fabric away from the wound. "I didn't think of it," she said. "Most ninja don't want to know the gory details. By the way, when you had your Byakugan activated, could you tell if Tenten used a barbed arrowhead?"

"She never does for target practice."

She laughed. The sound was light and airy and a strange contrast to the situation. "Is that what they were doing?"

Neji rolled his eyes, suddenly embarrassed for both of his teammates. "Lee was trying to replicate something Gai did a few days ago and he somehow talked Tenten into humoring him."

"You didn't see fit to stop them?"

"I was not around. We were supposed to meet on the training field and when they were not there, I went looking for them and caught up when they were already on their way to the hospital."

"Well, accident or not, Tenten should be commended on such a good shot," Sakura said. "She actually hit Lee! I wouldn't have thought that possible."

Neji, despite himself, smiled a little.

Having nothing else to do and being unwilling to leave, for the next several minutes Neji simply watched Sakura work and soon found himself surprised by how one could get to know the medic just by observing her work. She was quick and efficient and every movement was practiced and fluid, speaking something of perfectionism. As he lacked more than a cursory knowledge of first aid, he was sincerely impressed. She made it look _easy_ and he knew that medical ninjutsu was anything but.

He looked down and lifted one hand, his palm up and his fingers spread.

With all of this in mind, the idea of Sakura missing any little detail of his injury seemed strange. She had most definitely been working beyond her limits that night.

"Neji?"

He lifted his head quickly and frowned at how close Sakura suddenly was. "Yes?"

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Neji immediately dropped his hand and his sleeve fell to cover it. "Yes. I was just thinking."

Sakura looked skeptical, but nodded. "I see." She glanced back at Lee and smiled. "Well, I'm done, but he'll be out for a while with everything that Tenten gave him. You might as well let him sleep it off in here."

"Are you sure?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," she chimed. "And I'll be around for a while, so I'll keep checking in on him. You should let Tenten know what's up."

* * *

"Ah, my friend."

Neji, who had been passing time by meditating, cracked open an eye and his expression softened upon seeing that Lee was conscious. "Rest," he commanded quietly. "Haruno-san was adamant about checking on you again before you left. She should be back within the hour."

Lee smiled little. "Ah, Sakura-san. She cares so much for her friends. I am gratified to be counted among them."

Neji nodded, but said nothing.

"Where is Tenten?"

"I convinced her to go for lunch. She will be back."

Lee wobbled his head a little in a nod. "So, why are you still here?" he wondered with genuine curiosity. "You do not have to keep me company, if you have business elsewhere, Neji."

The Hyuuga stared at his teammate for a moment and then closed his eyes again to return to his meditation. "No," he agreed, "I don't have to."

* * *

1. Merry Christmas everyone! I thought I'd go ahead and finish this up and post it as a bit of a gift for you all. So sorry it's not a House Calls update.

2. Neji! ... Is really, really hard to write. Especially when you're attempting a certain interpretation of him. I really like the guy, but I don't always like the idea of the cold badass archetype, which honestly gets really damn boring after a while. So before anyone cries foul on my portrayal of Neji here and how it contrasts so much to how he is in other chapters, keep in mind that he is almost exclusively around people he loves in this chapter.

3. On the other hand, I really enjoy writing Tenten. And again for all of those who missed it the first time, this is a Sakura/Neji fic. Tenten's role here is to be the closer-to-earth voice of reason in his life. Also, she's around to be a bit of a pest when she gets bored.

4. A chronological note: The beginning of this chapter takes place immediately after the first chapter's meeting in Naruto's office and at the same time as everything Sakura was doing last chapter. Except for the last bit where Lee gets hurt. That's a few days later. Why couldn't I just make this clear in the chapter? I don't know.

5. Hanabi! It's really kind of too bad that she gets zero characterization in the series. Too bad because I think she might be more Moe adorable than even Hinata, like she looks like something that'd crawl out of your television and cuddle you to death. Here I went for a bit of a reversal for her and Hinata. Now that they're older, she didn't want to be the heir, Hinata knew this and took the position even though SHE doesn't particularly want it, and while Hinata is earning new praise for being the perfect lady and diplomat, Hanabi is in the awkward and unfamiliar position of being considered the inferior one now. And she's adorkable to boot. I really wanted to go for the "tomboy who feels like she can't compare to her ultra feminine and pretty older sister". Hope I got somewhere in that zip code.

6. Neji! Is really, really close to both of them. I always imagined after the war the three of them sort of solidifying together as siblings and ignoring any boundaries that might be here.

7. Fun Fact: Neji is genetically the girls' half-brother. Their fathers were identical twins, meaning they had identical DNA.

8. Chew on that incest shippers. Yuck.

9. Yes! God, yes before you flood my inbox, I know that cousin/cousin relationships are not frowned on in other countries and Americans are just big old prudes, but shut up; it's icky.

**(Again, Merry Christmas everyone! As a more special treat, I plan to have a one-shot featuring the majority of the Konoha 11 up before New Years. Humor and cuteness abounds! Please review!)**


	4. Family and Friends

**Blind Spots  
**

**Chapter 4  
**

* * *

Sakura had become so accustomed to arriving home to find Sai sleeping or drawing or just generally occupying her living room that she had opted to stop questioning it. She knew that he had attached himself to her sometime ago and she wouldn't begrudge him that.

However on this particular afternoon it was Sasuke who had opted to camp in her living room, which was not really all that strange either. While Naruto was a frequent visitor of the Uchiha's, he really only had the two of them and she couldn't deny him company either if he so desired it. Her personal feelings aside, she applauded his choice to ramble around her house over remaining isolated in his apartment. As a bonus, she was the one in charge of monitoring his psychiatric health and it gave her good things to put in his file.

On reflection, it was good that Sai and Sasuke never seemed to desire her company at the same time, because she could only imagine how that would end. As Kiba had once so eloquently put it, when they were together they seemed to always be willing the other to "drop fucking dead" and as much as Sakura wanted to argue with this observation, with time she was beginning to fear that it was the truth.

"I do not understand why you do this to yourself."

"I didn't _do_ anything to myself! You are _not_ helping, Sasuke!"

"You knew you had this meeting."

"I thought I could get everything done this morning!"

"Given your schedule, that would have required the ability to be in multiple places at once and I do not remember you acquiring that skill."

Sakura shot Sasuke a damning look as she ran a brush through her hair. She wore only a pair of silky shorts and a bandeau while her dress lie in the bedroom until it was called upon. "You're not helping," she said again and then she stomped her foot and spun around in an agitated circle. "Ugh, where are those stupid pins?"

"Here, let me help you look."

She rounded on him with a scowl but then realizing what he had said, she found herself unable to resist the smile pulling at her lips or the short laugh that bubbled out of her, which she immediately stifled with her hand.

A small smirk curled over his mouth anyway.

To break the awkward tension, since she had no idea whether to apologize or sass him, and to wipe that smarmy look off his face, Sakura grabbed a pillow off the couch and threw it at him. He easily deflected the strike and she was left to stalk off to her room in a huff.

Sakura dressed in silence and after securing her hip pouch in place and slipping into a pair of pretty, strappy sandals she swept a frayed, straw hat off her dresser and plopped it on.

"Did you find your pins?" Sasuke asked as she stepped out of her bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her.

She rolled her eyes. "No, but I can do without them. I'm late as it is. Do you have any plans today?"

He shrugged one shoulder and got to his feet. "Training. I'll walk out with you."

Sakura nodded and let him lead her out the front door, which she pulled closed behind her and then placed a seal on. She frowned when she felt something catch the back of her dress and looked just in time to see Sasuke's hand fall to his side. "What?" she asked.

"Silk?"

She smiled. "Yes. I had some extra money so I splurged a little. Why? You never occurred to me as someone who'd care about such things, Sasuke."

He offered her a half-smirk, taking the teasing with better humor than she might have expected. "It suits you," he said finally.

"Thank you."

Ino had questioned her once on why she spent so much time with someone she wasn't completely comfortable around. Sakura simply shrugged her off, but the truth was that moments like these—weird, random, and awkward though they were—gave her hope that someday things could be okay again. In these moments, the past vanished and she could see that there was something good there still, something worth holding on to. After all, it had to mean _something_ that she could forget her misgivings and laugh with him, even if it was only for a minute. It was nice, too, to see him acting like a real, feeling person again, making her comfort a small price to pay. Besides, it meant the world to Naruto to see Sasuke adapting and acclimating to a normal life and it meant the world to Sakura to see the blond smile like he did.

Ino would scoff and accuse her of martyrdom, which is exactly why she was never consulted on this topic if it could be avoided.

* * *

Sakura wondered if she looked as pathetic as she felt wandering the labyrinth that was the Hyuuga compound's idea of landscaping.

She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation as she hit yet another dead end. This just wasn't fair! She could _see_ the Main House! Honestly, she was _thisclose_ to flipping decorum a carefully chosen hand gesture and just jumping onto one of the hedgerows to get an idea of where exactly she was going.

She should have walked with Tenten. The weapon's mistress was a far more frequent visitor of the compound than she was and no doubt knew her way around.

Sakura made a frustrated gargling noise as she came to yet _another_ dead end curse it to the bowels of hell! Were they _serious_ with this shit? What if there was a fire or something?

It took all of her strength of will not to wish a run-in with an opened flame on one of the elder farts and their robes. Their stupid, _pompous_ robes that dragged behind them when they walked and got in the way of honest, hard-working chuunin just trying to—ugh, may all their bacon burn!

Sakura beat a palm against her forehead as she stomped down the pathway. She was so, so _very_ late now.

After three more dead-ends, Sakura gave up, turned around, and jumped up onto the nearest stone wall before hopping down to the other side. She landed directly in what appeared to be a private garden. It was a pretty little place, with a little koi pond and shrubs. She glanced around, frowning to herself. There was a stone archway to her right, closed in on either side by heavy shrubs. Tentatively she approached it, hoping that it wouldn't simply be a rabbit hole down into an eternity of private gardens, because while far more attractive than dead-end after dead-end, she didn't have the—

Sakura's train of thought came to a grinding halt when she rounded the corner and her eyes fell upon a familiar form.

As a medic, Sakura was not unfamiliar with the human body. In fact, she had seen enough of both men and women to become quite desensitized to nudity. She suspected that all of her time spent elbow deep in the torsos of good friends and slicing open body cavities for autopsies had something to do with this. After that things like bare asses and genitalia were downright _boring_ by comparison.

However, her experiences also made her something of a connoisseur. There were benefits to tending mainly to ninja and after a few drinks she could even be persuaded into discussing with Ino who had the finest what and where.

As it so happened, Neji had wonderfully _perfect_ shoulders.

Actually, he had a damn near perfect pair of everything from the waist up. His shirt had been cast off and draped over a nearby bench (_good riddance_), which afforded her an unobstructed view of his torso. Truth be told, she had never seen an illustration to even compare to him in her anatomy books. Hell, the man even had nice _hands_ now that she thought about the poor and abused appendages. They were beautiful, with long, elegant fingers and broad palms and clean, neatly-trimmed nails.

Despite this, it wasn't his state of undress that had Sakura weirdly hypnotized. Rather, she was struck by the graceful precision of his every movement as he worked through several forms. Circle-walking, Hinata had called it once. She almost envied him. She didn't need to see herself fighting to know that she was anything _but_ graceful on the battlefield whereas he looked so _elegant_. Between his movements and his body, he was beautiful; nature's art in motion.

"Haruno, did you have a purpose or did you simply stop by to stare?" He hadn't missed a beat as he spoke and when he turned toward her and lashed out at the air with both hands, he raised an eyebrow at her in question. "Well?"

Sakura blinked at him and then babbled the first thing that came to mind: "I've never seen you train before. Your form is beautiful."

If she wasn't fairly certain that the clan would take it personally, she would have put her head through the stone of the archway and then prayed to the gods for unconsciousness to take her away from this place.

Even Neji looked shocked, which made that admission sort of worth it. He even dropped his stance. "Thank you," he offered awkwardly after a moment, but he sounded sincere.

The medic coughed to break the quiet that fell over them. "Um, I'm here to see Hinata and I got lost." He seemed amused by this and she pressed on: "Your clan's idea of landscaping is completely ridiculous. I hope it isn't considered terribly rude to jump over a wall around here."

Neji's expression softened even more. "You would be pardoned and I can pass your opinion onto the elders, if you would like," he replied, almost good-naturedly.

Sakura smiled back. "That probably won't be necessary."

* * *

As he had long ago been grouped in with the generation of ninja known as the Konoha Eleven, Neji was familiar with the girls of the teams through his own interactions with them and via the gossip their male counterparts often took part in on missions, in the bathhouse, and every other time they were in proximity of each other. He was not one to engage in such hen-housing himself, but he listened because that was the companionable thing to do and blackmail was always a useful tool.

Hinata was very politely referred to as beautiful and it was left at that (he suspected that other things were said in his absence, but since he couldn't kill anyone for what they might be saying behind his back, he tried to not think about it). Ino was gorgeous (he couldn't argue with that really), Tenten was sexy (Kiba had explained this rather bluntly: "Chicks with swords are hot, man"), and Haruno was "exotic".

He had never seen it before himself. From what he knew of the girl, she was temperamental, dangerous, and skilled, but Neji had never seen Haruno Sakura in her civilian form either. Now that he had, he suspected that _this_ was the person that Lee saw through his perpetually rose-tinted view of life and he couldn't honestly say that it was a bad view. There was something softer about her when she wasn't poised at her master's side or wearing the face of a stern medic. In fact, she looked downright _delicate_ in her silk sundress and hat and for someone who had been very recently on the receiving end of her wrath that was quite a mental turnabout. Her hair was down too and between it and the vibrant jade of her eyes, yes, she made a very beautiful picture indeed.

"I can show you the way to the Main House," he offered, for lack of anything better to say or do and because the silence was growing uncomfortable.

She smiled a bit sheepishly at this, but nodded gratefully. "Thank you," she said softly.

Neji nodded and retrieved his shirt, pulling it on before gesturing for her to follow him.

Neither of them spoke for some time and just as Neji thought that he might be forced to break the silence (strange, he had never felt compelled to bother with conversation before), Sakura did for him. "That was circle-walking, right?"

"Yes," he replied. "It is taught to young Hyuuga as their first forms, to help them with their balance and to hone their precision. I enjoy it as a warm-up."

"It's so graceful," she said with obvious admiration. "Like a dance. All the movements are so fluid and neat." She smiled at him. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to babble like that. I guess I've just never had a chance to appreciate the movements involved with Gentle Fist style. I usually only see it during an actual fight or when I'm sparring with Hinata and usually I'm too busy trying not to get killed then. Plus, she's just so graceful anyway. You know, it doesn't look like it ought to be so dangerous. Then again, maybe that's the beauty of it." She laughed and shook her head. "I'm sorry. More babbling."

Neji wasn't sure why, but he found that he enjoyed her candidness. She wasn't elegant about it, but she was honest and that was refreshing. "I have always thought the same thing, but figured it had to do with a personal bias," he replied. He glanced over at her. "I apologize for being so rude to you before."

Sakura looked surprised by this but then smiled. "Like I haven't given you any reasons as of late to be?" she asked. "Neji, I'm so sorry about—"

"You warned me," he cut in. "I was just too stubborn to heed it."

She smiled. "That's true," she agreed. "But even so, I am sorry. Your hands are so important—they are better now, aren't they? You would tell me if you were in pain still, right?"

Neji wasn't sure if he would have before, but the look in her eyes was enough to convince him that he would now. "I am fine."

She nodded and reached over to lay a hand on his forearm and squeezed. It was a small gesture, but one of familiarity and closeness. He liked the simplicity of it and how much it conveyed with so very little effort. It was warm, but efficient and he found that he admired those things about her in general.

They reached the Main House easily and just in time to nearly be bowled over by a young boy as he careened around a corner. Neji grabbed Sakura easily to pull her out of the way when he nearly toppled her over.

"Sakura-nee!"

"Konohamaru!" she said, surprised. "What's wrong? You look awful!"

He was breathing hard, covered in dirt with his hair matted to his head by sweat and dried blood. His hands and exposed arms were littered with cuts and scratches. "I was here to talk to Hiashi-sama, but you should probably come to," he said, rushed and breathless.

"Konohamaru!" Sakura cut in, sharper and alarmed this time as she grabbed his wrists. His hands were covered with angry red blisters. "Gods, what happened? You should be at the hospital!"

"That's what I'm trying to say!" he snapped. "Look, we just got done with the mission and there's this plant that Udon called Pimpleweed or something—"

"Blisterweed," she corrected. "You shouldn't be in the sun if you were in it! This is just going to get worse! Gods, you're breaking out on your face too! Konohamaru!"

"Hanabi got it in her eyes!" the boy rushed out, his eyes rapidly shifting from the medic to Neji and then back. "She's at the hospital right now and Udon said it's bad and that her dad should know about it, so I came here!"

Neji's heart slammed painfully into his ribs and he looked to Sakura to see her expression had become very grave. She met his eyes calmly. "I should go," she said, her voice very soft. "You will tell your uncle? And Hinata."

"How bad is it?" he asked.

"I won't know anything until I see her myself," she replied quickly. "It could be nothing, but I'll go now. Konohamaru, keep up."

With that she was gone in a flash of white silk. He saw her briefly land on her tip-toes atop a nearby wall, but then she disappeared again just as fast. The chuunin was right on her heels.

With the same urgency, he turned toward the Main House to find his uncle.

* * *

It wasn't _nothing_.

"Blisterweed is a growing problem in the north country, especially in Kumo. The sap is secretes causes phytophotodermatitis—a skin inflammation that worsens with exposure to the sun. Depending on the amount of exposure that can mean anything from a mild rash to an extremely severe, burn-like wound. To varying degrees, the whole team was exposed from the sound of it."

"And Hanabi?"

Sakura drew in a deep breath. She hated this part of her job the most. Whether it meant explaining to a genin's mother that her son had been poisoned or telling a jounin's wife that he hadn't made it, she hated talking to the families. It was always the worst and most soul-crushing part of being a medic; worse even than losing a patient. "She was lucky," she began. "Udon is my best student. He did everything right in the critical window."

"But you are not letting me see her." Hiashi's expression was very serious, an affect that was heightened by the paleness of his opal-colored eyes.

"Right now she's in the process of being decontaminated, as is the rest of her team," Sakura replied. "The sap can transfer from skin-to-skin contact, so it has to be removed completely to begin treatment and so that we don't risk exposing anyone else, including visitors and the staff."

"Haruno-san."

She cringed, but she understood that the sharpness of his tone was not out of anger but fear. "Hanabi-chan's exposure was limited, but it was limited to her eyes. It has left her blind, Hiashi-sama," she said.

The man's whole body tensed like a bowstring pulled taut. "Blind?"

The tension was just as suddenly gone and, as if boneless, he dropped into the seat that Sakura had been trying to get him to take for the last hour. Instantly, she sat down beside him and laid a hand on his arm. Her office was small and at times like this, it was damn near claustrophobic. "It's hard to say right now how temporary her current condition is or isn't," she went on quickly. "I will not lie to you, people have been permanently disabled from exposure to this plant. However, I do stress that she had an excellent medic on hand. He identified the plant immediately and took all of the most important steps to begin her care. The chances that she'll make a full recovery are very good."

"Who is in charge of her care?"

"Tsunade, Shizune-senpai, and I will be attending to her ourselves during her stay in the hospital," Sakura replied.

"What about afterward?"

She had to give him credit for asking all of the most sensible questions at a time when some ninja couldn't even remember their names. This cool confidence in the face of something so terrible must have come from his years as a clan leader. It made her respect Hinata that much more and she wondered briefly where the girl had gone after she had pulled Hiashi aside. "She will need to be cared for constantly even following her release."

"Who will attend to her then?"

"Someone will be assigned to her case depending on the progress she makes while she's here."

He said nothing to this.

Sakura went on, unabated. "It will be some time before you will see her," she said. "She will need treatment very quickly and it's best if only medical personnel are present in order to avoid unnecessary complications. She has been sedated for a number of days, though, and will probably be confused and frightened when she awakens. I will see to it that either you or Hinata is present with her to help her through that."

Hiashi nodded slowly. "May I speak to Tsunade-sama?"

It felt like a dismissal, but she reflexively ignored it and nodded. "I will go find her and then check on Hanabi," she said. "You may stay here."

* * *

"Senpai."

Udon looked pale behind the frames of his glasses and he shifted a little when Sakura took a seat upon his bed. His arms were wrapped from fingertip to the shoulder in heavy, gauze bandages, where he had been exposed to the phototoxic sap when he had reached into the Blisterweed to remove his teammate when they had fallen. Konohamaru had very sheepishly admitted to her and Hiashi (an act of responsibility that had impressed Sakura) that he and Hanabi had been racing one another through the treetops when they lost their footing on the branches and fell into the Blisterweed. This had been in spite of Ebisu's warning that the rain the night before would have left the path slicker than was safe. He had, he said, thought he had been helping when he tried to correct the error and break Hanabi's fall with his own body, but it hadn't worked out quite the way he had intended. Moegi's and Ebisu's exposure had been purely as a result of attempting to help Udon extricate the pair from the bushes.

Sakura, who would be the first to admit that she knew nothing about Hyuuga facial expressions, thought that Hiashi had seemed as _amused_ by this as he did disapproving. Sure, she thought it was kind of funny because that was just the kind of thing she knew chuunin _did_ (and she and Naruto were guilty of their own fair share of tree top races, even now), but that was her. Then again, Hiashi had, many moons ago, been a boy and a chuunin himself and maybe he understood better than she was giving him credit for.

"Udon," she replied, laying a hand over his and pushing a surge of chakra into him. His body, so accustomed to this invasion and the feel of her chakra, allowed it readily and she met none of the resistance a medic typically did when it came to scanning a patient's vital systems.

"How is Hanabi?" he asked.

She breathed through the obnoxious swelling in her chest that made her ribs feel like they might burst. "She's being treated," she explained.

"There must be a preliminary _something_ other than that," he argued, suddenly flushed with life as he struggled to sit up, against a chest wound had had received during the mission and had ignored in favor of treating his team. "What about sensei and Moegi-chan? What about that idiot, Konohamaru? Did he get treated? I told him to find someone _else_ to get Hiashi-sama but he never listens, like it'd kill him or something!" He groaned finally and relented, falling back into bed and clutching at his chest with a bandaged hand. "_Gods' balls_."

"See?" she couldn't help but point out as she resisted her own pressing need to smile. "That's what happens when you don't manage your priorities properly and do something reckless like putting your team entirely before yourself. You and Konohamaru are a lot alike in that respect."

He groaned again, this time in protest of the comparison. It was true, nevertheless. That was why they were each other's best friends, no matter how badly one spoke of the other.

Deciding to have pity on him, she squeezed his hand a little more firmly and he met her eyes again, his brow furrowed in question. "Tsunade-sama says that as long as everything goes right, Hanabi will make a full recovery. Her family's with her now. As for everyone else, they're fine too. Moegi was decontaminated before the burns could set in and Ebisu-senpai will be fine." She smiled at him and reached up to push his hair gently off of his face and out of his eyes. "You were fantastic, Udon. You did everything right and I am so proud of you."

Typically, the boy flinched away from any physical sort of affection—that was simply his nature and she had long ago accepted it—but at this he leant his face into her palm and let out a long and tired sigh that she knew all too well. It was the deflation, the release of every tension and worry the mission had wound up tight inside the body. His team was fine. He could stop fighting the effects of the drugs he had been administered hours ago and let himself rest because his shift was finally over.

"Sleep," she said, pulling her hand away and getting to her feet. The command was unneeded as he appeared to be well on his way there without her. Gently, she removed his glasses and laid them, folded, upon the bedside table on his right. "I'll be back this evening to check on you."

* * *

Hanabi's room was one of the interior rooms with no windows—and therefore damaging exposure to the sun—and the lights were off when Sakura popped inside to check on the girl very late that night. She tread silently, careful not to wake Hinata, who had fallen asleep with her hands wrapped around one of her sister's and her head resting lightly on the girl's leg. Hanabi slept as well. Hiashi and Neji were posted on either side of the bed in chairs, keeping a silent vigil over the girls. She nodded to both when they each opened their eyes to acknowledge her presence. They closed them again when she went about checking the girl's IV and administering another round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory pain medicine before checking her vitals. When she was done, Sakura ducked back out of the room.

A few minutes later, however, she returned again and carefully set about draping blankets, still warm from the dryer, over first Hinata and then Neji before moving to do the same for Hiashi. The wards were notoriously cold and she knew from experience that it was never comfortable to stay the night as a visitor.

"This is hardly necessary," Hiashi said, his voice very quiet so as not to disturb the others present.

Sakura smiled. "A hospital stay tends to be just as difficult on the family it is on the patient," she replied, just as softly. "As the only family member listed for five grown men who act like a hospital stay is a fate worse than death itself, I know that all too well. I like to keep it in mind as an attending physician. Try to sleep now, Hiashi-sama."

When she turned to leave she noted on her way to the door that Neji had, in the time she had her back turned, draped his blanket over Hinata. She smiled at that before stepping silently into the hall and pulling the door closed behind her.

Up a few floors, she retreated into Kakashi's room with a heavy sigh and gratefully removed her shoes at the door. The man was up, as he was all hours of the night because with years of experience came an avoidance of sleep. He was reading by the light of the desk lamp on his right and without looking up from his current page, he pulled the blankets back for her. All too happily, she collapsed onto the mattress beside him as she had many times since his stay had started.

"Long day?" he asked as he flipped the blankets back over her shoulders and let her get comfortable against his left side. As a team, they had piled into the same bed for warmth a few too many times for this to be even remotely strange for either of them. All she was missing was Naruto's shin to tuck her cold feet around and Sai to make an inappropriate comment about moresomes or sandwiches as the rough fabric of his shirt scratched her cheek. As it was, Kakashi alone would have to do. At least he didn't complain about how cold her toes were.

"The longest," she replied.

With that she fell asleep counting his ribs and making a mental note that in the morning she'd have to nag him about eating more.

* * *

1. I know! It's an update! I'm just as amazed.

2. I was actually considering giving this story up a while ago, but inspiration struck me suddenly.

3. Actually, it's more like insomnia. For those of you who aren't a part of the DA group, a quick summary: on Nov 30th I was in a car accident with my mother. She passed away as a result of her injuries and I spent the first week of December in the ICU, spitting out bits of glass and bemoaning how uncomfortable hospital beds are. My grief is indescribable because my mother was my best friend and constant companion and I feel as if I've lost an arm. Maybe that's where the inspiration came from. Grief does strange things to a writer. Other than that, however, I am fine, except for a few injuries that I've decided to simply ignore the existence of because they are a terrible inconvenience and I'd rather get over this part of my life.

4. Expect other updates soon. I haven't been able to sleep, either as a result of the meds I am on or because of my injuries or grief, so all I've been doing lately is write. For a Season will probably be the next to be updated and yes the final chapter of House Calls will come very soon. At least, eventually.

5. On a far happier note I enjoyed the hell out of writing this chapter, mostly because I really like Hiashi and Sasuke is an interesting challenge. Also, fluff. We could all use a bit of that, I think.

**(Please review.)**


	5. Amends and Offers

**Blind Spots  
**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"Don't you have a bed of your own?"

Sakura cracked open an eye to see Tsunade standing at the foot of the bed, reading through Kakashi's chart and marking things with a pen. She hadn't meant to stay all night—just a few hours to get her wind back—but the light outside the window indicated that it was early morning and the bony pillow that Kakashi's sternum made was gone. Distantly, she heard the shower running in the attached bathroom.

"Well?" Tsunade prompted.

"It was either this or fall asleep on my feet on the way home," she said.

The blond woman shook her head in disapproval and dropped the file back into the cubby at the foot of the bed. "Up," she commanded and she delivered to Sakura a sharp smack on the backside that prompted a pained yelp from the girl. "You have patients to see. That student of yours is being a right terror and it's too early to deal with the Hyuuga by myself. If you check the girl's progress, I'll see if I can't get that old goat she calls a father to eat some food. Divide and conquer. Up, up, up."

Sakura made a grumbling noise of discontent as she rolled out of bed and by the grace of familiarity caught the night bag that Tsunade then threw at her head without looking. "Shower," the woman said. "You have fifteen minutes."

The pinkette rolled her eyes, but beat feet to the nurse's locker room on the third floor, where a quick round of conditioning and a good, close shave made her feel marginally more alive than she had. There was even a fresh change of clothes in the bag—likely Ino's doing since the dress matched very well with the sandals she had been wearing.

In Hanabi's room, Sakura found Tsunade attempting to lure Hiashi away from Hanabi's bed with the same success one might have attempting to uproot a Fire Country Oak with a spade.

"I mean no offense to your student," he began, sparing Sakura a quick glance, "But I would feel more comfortable if you would see to Hanabi's treatment personally."

Tsunade huffed out air through her nose, like an agitated bull. "Hyuuga Hiashi, you don't know anything about medicine so I don't want to hear you passing judgment on any of my medics," she said, her tone reminiscent of her days as the Hokage but scarier because as a simple administrator she wasn't bound by the constraints of diplomacy. "As for Haruno Sakura, her hands are as capable as my own."

Sakura tried not to beam too brightly at that, even though it made her want to glow inside and out. The fact was that Tsunade never seemed more willing to offer a compliment than she was when someone expressed doubt in her student and, by extension, doubt in her ability as a teacher.

Hiashi frowned a bit, obviously displeased to be called out like a genin by the woman, but nodded anyway and with one last glance at his daughter, followed Tsunade into the hallway.

"I'm sorry about him."

Sakura sat down on the edge of Hanabi's bed and smiled at the girl. "He's your father," she said. "He just wants what's best for you."

Hanabi scoffed a bit as Sakura began to unwind the gauze that circled her head like a halo and covered both of her eyes. "It's kind of embarrassing," she said. "He didn't yell at that idiot Konohamaru, did he? Because I'm just as guilty as he is."

"Well, Konohamaru took full responsibility," Sakura replied. "And your father thanked him for his honesty and wished him a speedy recovery."

Hanabi seemed contented by this. Sakura finished with the gauze and laid the roll of it beside her as she reached to remove the two cotton pads that had been placed over the girl's eyes to keep the healing salve in place. The skin around her eyes, the lids, and her temples, appeared red and irritated, as if they had been burned. Her eyes themselves were bloodshot and clouded over—an effect that was exaggerated by the lack of color. "Any changes?" Sakura asked as she waved a hand in front of the girl's face.

"No, it's all still just shadows," the girl said, sounding dejected.

"Eh, it was a long-shot," Sakura replied. "You'll be hearing that question and giving that answer a lot over the next few weeks, so don't get discouraged."

Hanabi relaxed back into bed with a heavy sigh. "I cried last night in front of my sister and in front of Neji-nii," she whispered. "I cried in front of Father. It was so embarrassing."

"Hanabi, I'd cry if I was blinded and I don't have a bloodline ability to lose," Sakura said gently. "It's natural and human. It's not just your bloodline, but your career and everything you've been working for since you were a little girl. I've seen men who have been at this job for twice as long as you cry. You just can't help it and people like your father, sister, and cousin know better than to judge anyone for it."

"I've never seen Nii-san cry—not that I really remember at least," Hanabi went on. Then, very thoughtfully she added, "But I have see Father cry. I suppose that makes it better."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Not that she was interested in gossip. She was simply trying to picture stone-faced Hyuuga Hiashi moved to tears and found it rather impossible.

Hanabi smiled a little. "When Hinata and Neji came home from the war. It was a few months after Father had been sent home and he worried the whole time," she said. "They were coming up the walk to the house and Father ran out to meet them. He cried as he hugged them."

Sakura couldn't see it readily in her mind, but knew the relief the man must have felt and that was enough to bring the familiar pinprick sensation of tears to her eyes, which she dismissed with a mute and frustrated sigh. She remembered what it was like to see Sai, Kakashi, and Naruto again after they had been split up during the aftermath of the war. She had hugged them and bawled in front of an entire camp of medics from all five of the Great Villages and hadn't cared. "Crying does not make you weak," she said firmly and she laid a hand over Hanabi's because there was no way to communicate her meaning through a smile. "Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, try to relax for me. I know that the chakra pathways around a Hyuuga's eyes can be quite sensitive, so this might be uncomfortable. Let me know if it becomes painful."

* * *

It had distressed his team to hear about Hanabi's condition and even Gai, who had broken both legs once and insisted still on training, had encouraged Neji to skip training for the day and return to his cousin's side. Some things, he said, were more important.

As much as he hated to miss a session, Neji had readily taken the advice and cut a quick path back to the hospital.

The burden he felt weighing him down lightened considerably when he heard Hanabi's hiccupping laughter coming from her room and he was surprised to see that it was Sakura perched on the edge of her bed.

"And that's what they call the "thermometer incident"," Sakura was saying. "As you can see, he was totally asking for it."

Hanabi was reclined against her pillows and clutching her belly as she laughed. Neji smiled to see her spirits brighter than they had been the night before.

Sakura noticed him then and smiled warmly. Gone was the pretty, civilian girl of the day before and in front of him was the medic he had known for some years, dressed in a white doctor's lab coat with her hair tied up into a high, swishing tail at the back of her head. "Hey," she greeted him. "Hanabi, your cousin is here."

Hanabi sat up a little at this, still chuckling as she did so. "Neji," she said, reaching for him.

Neji caught her hand in his and took a seat in the chair at her side. "Here," he replied gently. "Forgive me for my absence. I had to meet my team."

She snorted. "Duh," she replied as she wrapped both of her hands around just the one of his, her little fingers curling around his own like the tendrils of a vine. She had never felt so much like spun glass to him before.

"They send their regards and well wishes. Tenten said that she would come to visit you later and Lee promised to as well."

Hanabi smiled and nodded. "Good." She turned her head suddenly as the bed shifted. "Sakura?"

Sakura had stood up and was making her way toward the door as she wrote notes in a chart balanced on her left forearm. "Is something the matter, Hanabi-chan?"

The girl was frowning at the medic. "Where are you going?"

Sakura smiled. "I have some things to do," she said. "I will come back later. If you want, I could bring something to read to you."

"I would like that," Hanabi replied quickly. "Just, please, come back?"

The medic laughed at this. "I will. It was nice seeing you again, Neji."

She nodded to him and then stepped out into the hall. Neji watched after her for a second and then gave Hanabi's hands a gentle squeeze. "I will be right back," he whispered to her before standing and following Sakura.

He couldn't remember a time when their paths had crossed as often as this, but he found himself grateful to her, that she could make Hanabi laugh at such a time and that she was so quick to offer comfort to Hinata, who had been forced away from her sister's bedside to attend a meeting with the clan elders.

"Sakura."

She smiled at him as she dropped the chart into a cubby next to Hanabi's door. "What's up?" she asked.

Neji searched for what to say and then let out a long breath and shook his head as he glanced backward as if at Hanabi. "I want to thank you," he said. "For everything."

"It's my job," Sakura replied with a shrug. "Even if it wasn't, Hinata has been a very dear friend to me for years and Hanabi is a sweet kid. I wouldn't need any more of a reason than that."

"My uncle…" He trailed off, hoping that that would be explanation enough. He had heard the day before how terse and short the man was with her and wondered if it had anything to do with his previous impression of the medic.

For her part, Sakura didn't seem concerned. "He's under a great deal of stress at the moment," she said. "I don't blame him for acting like it."

"Even so…"

She smiled. "He loves his family and he wants what's best for them. I deeply respect that."

Neji thought of the stories that Gai sometimes told about the war when Tenten would ask him to, because he had a way of telling those stories—of both triumph and loss—that made the memories seem less awful. Those that included Sakura always exalted her vicious need to protect, even at the cost of her own well-being. It drove her; a true medic, Gai always said with more than a bit of reverence. There were few things that motivated Haruno Sakura to fight like the idea of harm coming to her squad or those under her care. Neji had heard similar stories from other sources. Hell, her steadfast loyalty to Uchiha Sasuke in the face of widespread disapproval and snide, hissing rumors was enough to prove that much of her character. If his memory served, there was even one story of her hitting someone for speaking ill of Uchiha _Itachi_ after the true story of his "betrayal" had come to light and that spoke volumes more.

"Go back to Hanabi," Sakura told him gently, snapping him from his reverie with the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand on his forearm again. "I'll be back in a little while."

He nodded and she turned away with a smile and a casual wave as he stepped back into Hanabi's room.

* * *

"Sasuke's improving, I see."

Yamato chuckled wryly to his lap as Sakura attended to a slice in his shoulder where the edge of a sword had cut past his skin into the meat. He was shirtless since his sweater had been soaked through with blood and mud and to make it easier for them both Sakura had cut it with a quick skim of her chakra scalpel. The worn, ratty fabric had fallen away easily and it reminded her a little of how Kakashi wore his clothes to death as well. "He is," he agreed at length. "He's a quick study. It would take anyone else years to adapt to hand-to-hand combat the way he has with his disability. It won't be much longer before he's perfected this jutsu of his."

Sakura hummed at this. She was perched beside him on the cot in her office, a mess of bloody rags lying beside her, having served their purpose well. "Good thing. He doesn't have the patience to wait much longer," she said.

It was moments like these that made Sakura forget the more tumultuous aspects of their relationship; that reminded her of years before when Yamato had first stepped in to fill Kakashi's role. They had gotten along so well then. She had enjoyed his easy manners, especially in comparison to how distant Kakashi had always seemed to her back then.

"I talked to Kakashi-senpai today. And Naruto." Yamato glanced up at her from the corner of his eye. "They want me to continue leading the team."

Sakura shrugged. "Well, that makes sense," she said. "Why shuffle around the rosters when this arrangement works?"

"Not that it's working out so well."

She passed him an ironic little smile. The tissue had finally knitted itself together under his flesh and she could begin sealing the skin. "Kakashi thinks we just need time," she murmured.

"He said the same thing to me. I told him that you might kill me sooner than that."

"I told him the same thing."

Yamato actually smiled and dropped his chin to his chest as he ran a hand over the back of his neck in a familiar, uneasy gesture. She shooed it away when it wandered too near her work. "It was easier when you were a kid," he said at length.

"When I was a kid, I was so afraid of doing something wrong I needed someone to double check everything I did," Sakura replied. "Everyone else was always smarter and stronger and more skilled than me. I thought that always made them right. More right than me, at least. I guess the war changed… well, all of that—how I saw myself and others."

He hummed at this in a noncommittal sort of way as he fiddled with his gloves. "Kakashi was your commander then too, wasn't he? In the war, I mean."

She nodded. "He's been my commander my whole career, actually."

"Ten years then?" he asked.

"Just about, yes."

An ache panged through Sakura's chest and for a moment it was hard to breathe. Ten years. She thought of Kakashi, who was soon to be permanently retired, and her heart broke all over again. It hadn't really set in until after the war, but Kakashi had become something of a rock in her life. She felt grounded with him and more than anyone else he treated her like an adult, like someone of worth and value (even Tsunade sometimes still treated her like a child). The war had bonded them together as comrades and teammates and after all these years she had earned his trust and respect. It had kept them alive in Earth Country, on the countless missions before that, and she did everything to make sure he never regretted it.

Maybe Yamato didn't stand a chance when it came to taking his place. Maybe no one else ever would.

"There," she said, pulling her hands away and leaving the skin new and pink where it had once been opened and bleeding.

"You don't happen to have a shir—" Yamato was cut off when a pile of black fabric smacked him in the face and Sakura laughed from her storage cabinet as she shut and locked the steel doors again. "Why…?"

"Quite a few people come to see me in my office," she replied. "As much as it'd amuse the nurses, I try to avoid a parade of shirtless people walking out of here every day."

Yamato laughed, flashing white, straight teeth and pink, healthy gums, and she smiled at the sound. He was always so dour and calm, so much like the emotionless, porcelain masks they wore in ANBU that there was seemingly no difference between it and him. It had been that way once with Kakashi, when his mask had seemed so much a part of him that over time she had simply stopped thinking of it as separate from his face. However, it was and she had seen it for herself. That and the honest smile Yamato had on his face gave her some hope.

"How's it feel?" she asked when he was dressed again and shrugging into his flak jacket.

Yamato shrugged his shoulder and stretched his arms over his head. "A bit stiff," he said.

"There will be a little swelling left over," she replied, nodding. "Training will just continue to agitate it I'm afraid, so go home, put ice on it, and rest."

He shook his head, a frown tugging at one corner of his lips. "Later. I've left Sai and Sasuke alone too long already I think…" He trailed off and they shared a look that spoke volumes more than they had actually ever _said_ on the topic.

They both knew it was a problem, a cancerous growth that was crippling their already limping team, but neither could point to a source for it. It wasn't obvious to anyone on the outside, either. To anyone else, Sasuke and Sai might have seemed downright civil with one another, all things between them considered. However, Sakura had seen the first spark of hatred when Sasuke had been reinstated as a member of their team and Yamato had spotted it immediately when he saw how Sai's impassivity wavered in the Uchiha's presence. The hate between them was noxious and palpable, even at the best of times.

"Go," Sakura told him.

Yamato nodded and a second later was gone.

* * *

Sakura reflexively face-palmed when she walked into Udon's room and found Konohamaru sitting on the foot of his friend's bed, a surgical glove pulled over his head, which expanded like a balloon with his breathing. Udon was chuckling to himself as he watched.

"You're going to suffocate yourself," Sakura scolded as she pinched a bit of the material at the back of his neck and snapped it against his skin.

Konohamaru yanked the glove off and rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. "Baa-chan wanted me to keep him in here," he replied. "He's kinda a sucky patient."

Sakura rolled her eyes and turned his face toward her to check the burn on his cheek. It was milder than those that Udon had received, but he had also been treated faster as well. "Are you taking your meds?" she asked. "All of them? Because I'll know if you're lying."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes, Nee-san," he muttered.

She nodded and looked to Udon then. "Terrorizing the nurses? It's not even noon yet."

The bespectacled boy scowled at her. "They're idiots."

"Careful. As a medic, they're going to be the ones you'll rely on," Sakura retorted. "They work long hours and deal with grumpy, injured, agitated people all day and the last thing they need is for one know-it-all chuunin to be giving them grief. Besides, you spend more time in the field than here in the hospital. They don't need you telling them how to do their job."

"Their filing system is absurd!"

"To you," she replied. "As long as _they_ know what they're doing, it's none of _your_ concern, especially not as a patient. Besides, if Tsunade hears you talk like that she's liable to tear your ears off and if I hear you talk like it anymore, I might just do the same, understood?"

Udon sighed heavily through his nose. "Sorry, senpai."

Sakura nodded and looked to Konohamaru. "If he doesn't behave himself, feel free to restrain him," she said.

The boy pumped a fist into the air. "All right!"

Udon glowered, but went otherwise ignored. "How's Hanabi?" he asked instead.

Sakura crossed the room to a set of cabinets and drawers and after some searching, found what she needed and returned to the bed. She sat down first beside Konohamaru and began dabbing some cream from a freshly opened jar onto his cheek. "Cooling salve," she explained shortly when the boy made a face at the gentle sting of it against his wound. "And Hanabi's… well, she's still blind, but she's doing all right, all things considered."

Konohamaru cringed. "It's my fault," he muttered.

Udon rolled his eyes. "Don't play martyr," he scolded, but his tone was gentle. "It was just bad luck. You didn't _aim_ for that plant. If anything, I should have informed the team of the danger beforehand as soon as I realized we were going to Kumo."

"Let's not play the "no, it's my fault" game at all," Sakura interrupted. "It's good that you both want to take responsibility, but things like this happen all the time to ninja no matter their rank, even to jounin and ANBU. It's one of those thing s you can't account for." She wiped the excess cream off on her lab coat and then reached to undo the bandages that were wrapped around Konohamaru's hands. They weren't as extensive as Udon's, as they left his fingers uncovered and mobile, but she could see where he had been picking at them. "How do your hands feel?"

"Shizune-nee actually took care of most of it," Konohamaru replied. "They're just kinda sore, like they burn when I wash and stuff."

Sakura hummed as she set the bandages aside. With one hand she scooped some salve from the jar into her other and then rubbed it between her palms to warm it. Then she reached for Konohamaru's right hand and began to massage the cream into the skin, which was pink and agitated rather than outright blistered as they had been. "It's important to keep them covered," she said. "Try not to peel at the bandages anymore, okay?"

Konohamaru grinned a bit guiltily. "All right."

She smiled and began to rewrap his hands, being careful to do so the same way she did for the jounin she treated, who liked their fingers freed and useful even if they were bedridden—a force of habit after years of training. Konohamaru flexed his palms and fingers against the bandages as soon as she was finished, which gave and bent to accommodate his movement and he beamed at her appreciatively. She stared at him for a thoughtful moment before applying a square of gauze over the burn on his cheek and then taping it into place.

Then the process began over again, this time with Udon. She was careful as she peeled away his bandages, wincing whenever he did. Just as tenderly, she inspected the burns that ran the length of his arms and their varying degrees of severity. Some areas were barely pink with inflammation while the back of one of his hands had a deep, weeping wound where it looked as though he had been burnt all the way to the meat. She frowned at this and poured some of her chakra into it to gently stimulate the healing process.

Oftentimes, burns increased in severity on their own, so it wasn't unusual for medics to take the 'wait and see' approach rather than having all of their hard word undone. However, in this case she would make an exception. A partial healing would prevent the wound from getting any worse, even if the healing itself was undone.

She attended to a handful of other areas before reaching for the salve and applying it liberally and gently. The nature of it mixed well with chakra and she wove tiny amounts of hers in with the jelly-like substance as she spread it around. Once finished, she stood and washed her hands at the sink before going about the process of reapplying new bandages.

"I was sorry to hear about Kakashi-senpai," Udon suddenly said, his eyes briefly meeting Sakura's before returning to his lap.

Sakura sighed. "It was only a matter of time," she replied.

Konohamaru shrugged at this. "Still, it sucks."

She smiled and ran a hand fondly through his hair once she had finished the last of Udon's bandages. "It does," she agreed. She gathered up the old bandages into a pile and then stood and dumped them into the trash bin. "I'll be back to check on you later, Udon. I have rounds. I'll see you later as well, Konohamaru."

Both of the boys nodded and with that she went for the door, but it opened before she could reach it and a ginger-haired girl rushed inside, her long braids trailing after her. The ends just skimmed the backs of her thighs and they were almost long enough to wrap around her completely when she whirled in place to look at Sakura. "Sakura-nee!"

The medic smiled. "Hey Moegi."

The girl was carrying a basket in front of her and beaming from ear-to-ear, her freckled cheeks bunched up into a happy smile. "How are they?" she asked, jerking her head back to the boys.

"I just changed their dressings," Sakura replied. "Wallop Konohamaru one for me if you see him picking at his."

"Hey!"

"Can do!" Moegi chirped back before twirling to face the boys and holding up the basket. "I brought sweets from mom's shop!"

Sakura smiled and slipped out into the hall.

* * *

Hiashi returned not too long after Sakura had departed and only when Hanabi fell asleep did Neji move from her side to sit at his uncle's instead.

"You could return to the compound," Hiashi said, his voice very soft so as not to disturb his daughter. His shoulders were slouched and his face was weary and drawn with exhaustion.

"I will not unless you order it," Neji replied simply.

His uncle shook his head and one of his palms ghosted over Neji's shoulder in the barest of touches, conveying many things without a single sound uttered. _Stay_, it said. And he would, until he was dragged away and even then his assailant had best be prepared for a fight.

"Tsunade-sama told me that Hanabi could be released as early as the weeks' end," Hiashi said. "However, Hanabi will need someone to be with her at all times once she is brought home."

"I will extend my leave for as long as it is necessary," Neji murmured.

The shadow of a smile fell upon his uncle's face. "You have other duties."

"My duty is to my family," the younger man replied dismissively. "What of a medic?"

Hiashi shook his head. "Tsunade-sama has agreed to accommodate my preferences, if I have them and if she deems them sensible." He offered his nephew a wry, half-smile. "It is as accommodating as one can hope her to be."

Neji returned the smile and then his eyes fell upon Hanabi, pale and thin in her bed. "It is too much to ask of Hinata," he said. "Her medical skills are not as refined as her other abilities and she must continue to focus on clan affairs lest the council begins to call her authority into question. Besides, she would never forgive herself if something were to go wrong."

The man beside him nodded solemnly. "Tsunade-sama's first apprentice is also unavailable. She acts as our young Kage's assistant when she is not occupied here at the hospital and I imagine that for the village's sake it is best she is left to that."

"If her team and the hospital can spare her, Sakura might be the best choice." Neji glanced at his uncle. "Haruno-san," he clarified.

"If your encounter with her is any indication, her bedside manner leaves something to be desired," Hiashi replied.

Neji shook his head. "We have both put that instance behind us. One could not place a stone wall between her and a patient and expect the wall to remain standing, no matter the circumstances. My chances were dismal, at best," he said. He looked to his cousin again and went on: "Hanabi likes her very much and Sakura has been Hinata's friend for many years. Her presence would bring them both a great deal of comfort."

Hiashi seemed to consider this as his chin came to rest upon his joined hands. "If it would please the girls…" He glanced at his nephew. "Do you trust her skills?"

The young man let out a quiet breath. "The only reason my hands were not fully healed after she attended to them the first time was because I would not tell her that I was still in pain," he admitted. "Haruno Sakura would, I think, quite literally work herself to death if no one took care to stop her. I would trust Hanabi to few others beside her." He paused briefly and then looked to the man beside him. "I am sorry that I did not explain that sooner, Uncle. I should have before you confronted Tsunade-sama and Hokage-sama on my behalf."

Hiashi said nothing at first and then his hand fell upon his nephew's shoulder again, but this time the touch lingered as he squeezed. His hands were nothing like Gai's, whose hands were scarred and callused from years of work and abuse. Even so, the steadiness of his grip and the warmth of his palm were a comfort to Neji. "Pride makes everyone her fool from time to time," the older man said gently. "I thank you for telling me now. I will speak to Haruno-san as soon as possible regarding Hanabi. If she agrees first to this request, Tsunade-sama will be more inclined to follow suit."

* * *

Sakura tried not to look quite as dumbstruck as she _felt_, but she imagined that she was failing at that when she felt her own jaw hanging slack. She closed her mouth forcefully and straightened a little under Hiashi's patient, but penetrating stare. She wondered if that was a Hyuuga thing or something exclusive to clan leaders. Had Hinata ever looked at her, or anyone, that way? She couldn't imagine it. "I would be happy to continue attending to Hanabi-chan after her release, Hiashi-sama."

"Understand that this is a request that you are free to deny, Haruno-san. I know that you have many obligations."

She was shaking her head before he even finished and noted the tiny, almost imperceptible life of one eyebrow. "I am obligated to my patients," she said. "As I said, I would be happy to continue caring for Hanabi-chan."

Hiashi seemed pleased by this and bowed his head gratefully. "I thank you," he replied and in some small way he seemed to relax. "The clan will pay you generously for your service."

"That won't be necessary," she argued. "The hospital will pay me as—"

"It is not a matter up for discussion."

Sakura silenced herself immediately, almost reflexively, because damn if Hiashi didn't have a way of taking the words right out of someone's mouth. Was that something else that came with being a clan leader? She couldn't remember Ino's father having ever managed that. He couldn't even command the attention of a room at a family dinner, although that might have been less his fault and more the fact that the Yamanaka brood rarely let anyone get a word in edgewise. "All right, then," she agreed, sounding meeker than she had in years. "I will speak to Tsunade-sama this afternoon and we will begin planning for Hanabi's follow-up care so that things are settled before she is released."

He nodded. "You may stay at the compound as a guest for the duration of Hanabi's recovery," he said. "A room will be prepared for your use in the Main House."

She was tempted to decline, but something about his tone told her that it would be as pointless as her previous protest. So, she nodded instead. "I appreciate that very much. Thank you, Hiashi-sama."

"I will speak to Tsunade-sama to confirm—"

"I will speak to her," Sakura cut in and she tried hard not to enjoy the look on his face or the act of regaining a little bit of her lost footing. "She will not argue with me."

Because Tsunade had honed Sakura's work ethic, determination, and stubbornness to match her own. She had sharpened the girl's skills and mind like trench knives and took pride in that, much like her master, Sakura never accepted 'no' as a valid answer. It was merely an obstacle, to be crushed or flung out of the way. She had taken such pains to do this that she never denied her student anything, except to rile her and force her to defend her requests. After that was done, it was with a great amount of fondness and no small amount of pride that Tsunade would call the girl defiant and accuse her of twisting her master's arm. Sakura only ever smiled in reply.

Hiashi nodded once and then, ever so slightly, inclined his head and shoulders in the very smallest of bows. "Thank you, Haruno-san."

Before she could answer, he was gone and Sakura was left to blink away the sudden haze of confusion that had fallen upon her. Hyuuga were _way_ too damn complicated.

* * *

"Sai."

Sai was staring at the wall with such intent that Sakura feared he'd burn a hole through her plaster. Her living room, like the rest of her house, was small, but comfortably furnished with an overstuffed sofa and plush pillows strewn about at random. They were seated on the sofa and she was tending to his bloody, battered knuckles with a wash cloth soak in antiseptic. His whole body was covered in bruises and she wondered vaguely if she would have to take her med-kit over to Sasuke's to check on him after she was finished with Sai.

"Sai," she said again, her tone beseeching.

They had gotten closer after the war, while Team Seven completed mission after mission to bring money in for a desperate Konoha. He was someone she could trust and rely on and he seemed to take that very seriously. No one, he told her one night, had ever trusted him and he had never trusted anyone. That had also changed, he said.

She had cried when he had first confided in her what he did remember of his training and what he had called the "desensitization process". It was only then that it really occurred to her what ROOT had taken from him; that they had tortured him from early childhood to break him. The gentle monotone he had used to describe it in made it all so much worse.

Sakura reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. He flinched at the contact and finally looked at her, his eyes clearing as if he had been in a trance. She petted his hair like she often did when sitting at his side after he was wounded, smoothing it where the sweaty strands were disheveled. "What is it?" he asked.

"Talk to me."

Sai stared at her for a few long moments, his expression soft. Then, with a hand still crusted in dried blood, he reached out and gently pushed the stray bits of pink hair that had escaped her ponytail away from her face. "I have nothing to say."

"You and Sasuke cannot keep doing this. We're supposed to be a team."

"We have never allowed our personal differences to interfere with missions," he replied and there was something vaguely accusatory in his tone that made her blush. "It is nothing you should concern yourself with."

Sakura grabbed his hand and turned his wrist to show him his cracked and bleeding knuckles, his half-missing thumbnail, and the way his pinkie finger was bent to the side. "_This_ concerns me," she snapped. "_You_ concern me, Sai. _Sasuke_ concerns me."

"He should not."

"Well, he _does_ and that isn't _your_ choice."

Sai's eyes hardened. It was a tiny change, something that someone else might have missed but experience made the change from coal to black ice easy for her to spot. "You concern me," he replied.

She frowned, not sure how to decipher his meaning. "Sai…?"

He stared at her for a moment longer and then looked away, signaling that the discussion was over.

With a heavy sigh, Sakura stood from the couch and headed toward the kitchen. "Go shower. I'll tend to you after you've finished."

* * *

At the end of the week, Hanabi was moved from her hospital room before sunrise to heed Tsunade's warning about sun exposure. At the compound, she was settled in a spacious interior den-cum-sick room in the Main House and later that same morning that Sakura arrived with the canvas backpack she typically carried on missions slung over one shoulder.

"Sakura!"

Hinata rushed to meet her as she was coming up to the stone walk toward the house, a flurry of silk sleeves and skirts and long, black hair. They embraced tightly when they met.

"I was so relieved when Father said that you agreed to continue treating Hanabi," the clan leader said. They parted and she took the medic's hands in her own. "I might never be able to repay you for this."

"You won't need to. Your father is being more than generous," Sakura replied with a dismissive shake of her head. "However, you must understand that I will still be on call. Should I be required at the hospital or called away to lead an RD Squad, I will not refuse. That is non-negotiable."

"Of course," Hinata answered. "Tsunade-sama and Naruto-sama are being very generous with your services and you are doing my family a great favor. We would not expect to capitalize on your time entirely. I hope that your team will not suffer for it, though?"

"They will survive I think," Sakura said, with more optimism than she genuinely felt. "I would like to see my patient now."

"Hanabi was still asleep when I left her just a few minutes ago," Hinata replied. "Let us get you settled in your room for now and then perhaps in a little while we can wake her to join us for breakfast. Come."

Still holding Sakura by the hand, Hinata escorted the medic into the Main House.

Sakura had been inside the great building a handful of times, but her breath was still taken away by the beauty of the place. The Fire Oak floors, which were a very dark, reddish color, were polished until they gleamed while every doorframe and visible rafter was elaborately hand-carved with designs of flowing ivy and flowers. Many of the outer walls could be slid opened, allowing in the warmth of sunlight and a constant, sweet-smelling breeze to blow through the many halls and rooms. The entire house dripped with a very simple and reserved kind of luxury.

"I cannot be with her as much as I would like to be," Hinata said to Sakura as they slowly ascended a set of winding stairs to the next floor. "Between clan affairs and my team—"

"I understand," Sakura cut in. "I'm sure that Hanabi does too."

"Better than anyone," Hinata admitted with a gentle smile. "She kept reminding me yesterday that I had meetings to attend. The truth is that she does not like to be in a position that requires assistance or fussing."

"I would blame her age, but that would mean we are a village overflowing with perpetual adolescents," Sakura replied with a shake of her head. "In my experience, it is more stubbornness than pride. Most ninja tend to catch that bug."

Hinata chuckled. "I have noticed as much myself."

The medic squeezed her friend's hand gently as they reached the top of the stairs. "As someone who has treated you for chakra exhaustion on more than one occasion, you have no room to talk, _Hyuuga-sama_."

Hinata laughed a little louder. "I do not deny it," she replied. "In my defense, however, I come by it quite honestly. Kiba claims that it is the Hyuugas' second bloodline ability."

Sakura smiled and they stopped at a door in the hall, which Hinata then pushed open gently, revealing a modestly decorated room with a plush futon and a pair of sliding screens opened just enough to allow in the breeze. There were fresh flowers in a vase placed atop a short stand beside the futon and two piece of ink-drawn art hanging on one wall side-by-side.

"The servants are at your disposal," Hinata said as Sakura dropped her bag beside the futon. "If you require anything, simply ask. Is there anything I can do?"

The medic nodded and surveyed the room for a moment before turning to face her hostess and smiling. "No, there isn't anything I'd ask the Hyuuga clan leader to do for me."

Hinata blushed a pretty shade of pink. "Please, do not call me that," she said. "It is strange enough to hear it from the elders, let alone a friend. I still think of that as my father's title. In many ways, the elders seem to think that as well."

"It will take time," Sakura replied. "I don't know much about clans, but I do understand how slow things are to change. People still go to Tsunade like she's the Hokage sometimes."

Hinata chuckled. "You are right," she conceded. "Come then, let me show you around the house. It has been a while since you have seen it in full, I think."

* * *

1. So this chapter kind of jumps all over the place, but there are a lot of little things I'm trying to develop, so that'll probably be par for the course in the future.

2. Hiashi is an interesting creature to write. I am going for a little bit of a different interpretation of him than what a lot people shoot for, in that I haven't made him a baby strangling monster. I just don't see it, guys. As for the more emotional bits, I think he'd allow himself to express himself when he was away from prying eyes that might misinterpret displays of tenderness as weakness. I believe that's called "The woman wearing the queenly mask" syndrome. Look it up on TVTropes.

3. Also fuck Kishi for ruining the chances of that kind of homecoming, which I would dearly love to see. I love the idea that Hiashi would cry to see his daughter and nephew home safe after a grueling war and that it would be one of the moments where he didn't care if someone saw him displaying more tender emotions.

4. Sooo, have I warned you guys that the romance thing is going to be slow? Because it's going to be slow. Like, we're talking molasses here.

5. Sai. Honestly, I'm probably having WAY too much fun with his angle. It's probably my favorite part of this whole story, even trumping the to-be romance.

6. I probably have WAY more fun with Konohamaru than I ought to. Udon as well. They've become two of my favorite characters to write.

**Please Review**


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